This week for Flora and Fauna Friday, it’s your local celebrity impersonator and the body-double of a beloved butterfly, the Viceroy (Limenitis archippus).
The Viceroy is a large butterfly found throughout the Eastern United States. The Viceroy’s wings are a burnt-orange crisscrossed with black veins, bordered with a heavy strip of black pinpricked by white, and with white spots at the wrist on the forewing. It’s a color pattern that is practically identical to that of the Monarch (Danaus plexippus). The only major visual differences between the two species are an extra black vein dividing the hindwing of the Viceroy, and the Monarch being a good third larger on average. Behaviorally, the two have a few telltale deviations. Monarchs rock and float more on the wing, whereas Viceroys often flutter in a straight line. Viceroys tend to stand atop vegetation while Monarchs dangle from it. But, at a glance when perched on a flower or gliding on the wing, the two look essentially indistinguishable. That’s by design. This is called Müllerian Mimicry. Both the Monarch and the Viceroy are toxic and foul-tasting to their predators. Thus they both benefit from bearing the same coat of arms and flashing the same warning signal to the world.
Unlike the Monarch, the Viceroy doesn’t migrate. They stay local to preferred habitats, generally wetlands, freshwater marshes, and river banks where Willows are plentiful. This makes their common name of “Viceroy”, a local ruler appointed by a wider ruling monarch, quite the apt name.
Viceroys, just like Monarchs, garner their toxicity as caterpillars by dining on their host plant. Here in the Lowcountry, Viceroys predominantly host on Willow trees (Salix spp.), eating their leaves and concentrating salycilic acid in their bodies. This is the same phytochemical that was studied and refined to create the medicine Aspirin. Viceroy caterpillars have a second defense mechanism as well and another form of mimicry. Their caterpillars have a lumpy greenish-brown body with a white saddle and two rugged black antennae. Their chrysalis has the same pattern as well, minus the antennae. Not only is this a fairly cryptic pattern that makes for good camouflage, but it also strongly resemble bird droppings. It might not be the most stylish appearance, but it certainly makes them an unappetizing target for avian predators.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday it’s the incredible, edible, glow-in-the-dark, root rotting, Ringless Honey Mushroom (Desarmillaria caespitosa).
Every year, in sync with the hurricane lilies, Ringless Honey Mushrooms begin to appear from the Earth on our Sea Island landscape. From the start of September through the end of October, they are readily found cropping up from hardwood stumps, upset root plates, and exposed roots in forests across the Southeast. Ringless Honey Mushrooms are saprophytic fungi and plant pathogens. They make their living off of trees and rotting wood. Ringless Honey Mushrooms infect the roots of a wide array of trees, most often hardwoods and commonly oaks. There they penetrate the heartwood and rot the roots and trunk from the inside out. An infection from any of the Honey Mushrooms is known to arborists and horticulturalists as “Armillaria Root Rot”, which is almost always fatal to the tree by the time it’s detected. Although it can be destructive to ornamental trees, Ringless Honey Mushroom is a natural player in our ecosystem and an important part of the nutrient cycling process. They generally only infect weakened trees and thinning out the forest canopy from time to time promotes understory biodiversity and a habitat mosaic. Saprophytic fungi decompose stumps and fallen logs, returning those nutrients back to the soil for the surviving trees to use.
The Ringless Honey Mushroom is somewhat easy to ID for a southeastern mushroom. It’s also edible and tastes quite good in my personal opinion. However, it must be fully cooked to avoid causing indigestion for some people. It emerges directly from rotting wood or the soil below a tree. From a single point, dozens of mushrooms crane upward ankle-high into a globe composed of two-inch flat caps, gilled beneath and set on pencil thin stalks. The mushroom caps are a drab-tan or pale-brown in color and the stalks bone-white. Notably, the stalks lack any form of a ring just below the cap, hence the moniker “Ringless” Honey Mushroom. This separates them from the Honey Mushroom (Armillaria mellea), which has a ring and a honey-colored cap, and also distinguishes today’s subject ‘shroom from all its poisonous or foul tasting lookalikes, of which there are a handful.
Speaking of lookalikes, this species was historically known by the scientific name Armillaria tabescens. However, deeper taxonomic and genetic work revealed that the “ringless” Armillaria were in their own genus, Desarmillaria, and that the Eastern United States harbors a visually indistinct sister species to Europe’s Desarmillaria tabescens. Thus, our American Ringless Honey Mushroom (Desarmillaria caespitosa) was rechristened.
A notable fun fact, the mycelia, the fungal equivalent of roots, of Ringless Honey Mushroom bioluminesce a faint blue-green light. Many of the other Honey Mushrooms and some other lineages of fungi do the same. It’s a phenomenon known as foxfire and it’s not understood why certain fungi produce this light. It may attract spore spreading insects, or function as some form of deterrent, or both, or neither. In the case of Ringless Honey Mushroom, only its mycelia glow, which are buried underground inside of tree roots where the light can’t escape. Maybe they radiate this light to ward off subterranean predators or pathogens. We genuinely don’t know. It’s a mystery.
Lastly my standard disclaimer when discussing a fungus, never ever eat a mushroom you found unless you’re 100% confident you know what it is. If you wouldn’t stake your life on your identification, don’t eat it, because you may very well be doing just that. A pack of mushrooms at the grocery store, even them fancy ones they’ve got at your favorite health food store, are a lot cheaper than a visit to the ER and/or a liver transplant. If you aren’t dead sure, don’t eat it. Another further point of caution, saprophytic mushrooms (like Ringless Honey Mushroom) can repurpose toxins found in the wood of their host trees. So if you don’t know what a mushroom is growing on, you may want to rethink your entrée for the evening.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday it’s a big duck from the Southeast with some baggage to unpack, the Mottled Duck (Anas fulvigula).
Feathers floating on winter waters, far-flung waterfowl can be found wary on our frigid wetlands every season. Amongst their numerous and cherished forms one dabbling duck looms above the rest, its newfound presence relegated to the margins of the marsh. The Mottled Duck is a large dabbler with a cryptic plumage. Their body is covered from tail tip to shoulders in a sea of two-tone feathers, ebony-black within and chestnut-brown around. At the throat the feathers lighten to a rich and textured khaki as they rise to a black, beaded eye. That eye is set at the summit of a darker arching stripe below a canopy of the duck’s darkened crown. The sole accent to break up this brindling of browns is a bill painted golden-yellow, save for a black tipped nail. On land, orange legs glow from below. In flight, iridescent indigo speculums shimmer atop the wings’ secondary feathers and below silver plates the wings’ entirety. Males and females look practically identical, save for the female’s yellow-orange bill. Amongst our Lowcountry ducks, the Mottled Duck stands out. Not just for its commitment to camouflage but because it’s just plain bigger.
The Mottled Duck is one of the Lowcountry’s only year-round duck residents, alongside the Wood Duck, a few Hooded Mergansers, and the nomadic Black-bellied Whistling-Duck. Mottled ducks can be found throughout southern Florida, and the tidal regions of the Gulf Coast, Georgia, and South Carolina. They are specialists adapted to our expansive brackish and freshwater marshes. They’ve also taken quite a liking to rice fields and shallow saltwater impoundments. They’re most easily spotted gliding along the fringes of open water in a brackish marsh, drifting out of view once they make eye contact with you. Mottled Ducks are powerful fliers, exploding up from the water when startled. As a true dabbler, they quack. A deep, loud, and quintessential quack.
The Mottled Duck’s history in South Carolina is a very recent and deliberate one. It’s a history rife with nuanced and complex discussions of conservation ethics, competing priorities, and long-term ecological ripple effects. So let’s dive on in and dabble in this duck’s legacy.
To begin, Mottled Ducks, like many wetland dependent species, have experienced extensive habitat loss from the draining, dredging, and damming of wetlands. These wetlands have also been further degraded by coastal development, water pollution, and aquatic invasive species. Additionally, as these ducks are non-migratory, localized habitat impacts have compounding effects on populations, as these birds rely on the same wetlands year in and year out. Now, they are also being threatened by rising seas. As a duck specially adapted for life in a narrow belt of habitat, which could be defined as where water meets land and seawater meets freshwater, the prospect of rapidly rising sea levels could drown out Mottled Ducks faster than the brackish marshes they rely on can migrate uphill.
The Mottled Duck is a close relative to the Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos). Female Mallards and Mottled Ducks also look incredibly similar. Yet, madam Mallard is one shade lighter with a darker orange bill and Ms. Mottled Duck a bit bigger. In fact, the two species can, and readily do, hybridize. This has become a problem for the Mottled Duck. Historically, Mallards did not breed in the southeast, similar to how Canada Geese used to be. Mallards were winter migrants. Over the centuries, a combination of pond creation, building of rice fields, the introduction of tame farm-raised Mallards from Europe, and restocking efforts all resulted in the materialization of resident Mallard populations in the Southeast. These resident Mallard populations have now become something not quite native. Resident Mallards began to wander south, pair up with Mottled Ducks, and raise hybrid offspring called “Muddled Ducks”. This interspecies gene flow can be a problem for the more habitat specialized Mottled Ducks as this influx of Mallard genes can result in hybrid offspring that are no longer fit for a life upon the brine of the sun-soaked southern marsh. This genetic admixture combined with the aforementioned habitat loss put Mottled Ducks in a precarious place.
To further complicate this, the Mottled Ducks in South Carolina were deliberately introduced in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This was to create a stable satellite population to serve as both a new game bird for the state and a disjunct reservoir population. In South Carolina, they’ve actually thrived in the rice fields and brackish marshes of the Lowcountry and have begun to colonize new habitats along the coast, to include Edisto Island. However, the ducks transplanted to South Carolina came from across their range in the United States and included both of the distinct subspecies. Although not as worrisome as the muddled Mallard hybrids, these translocated Lowcountry Mottled Ducks are now beginning to spread south towards the natural Florida populations. This flow of Gulf Coast Mottled Duck genes into the Florida Mottled Duck populations could compound with the flow of Mallard genes to eventually dissolve the Florida subspecies out of existence. That sounds pretty doom and gloom but, in the long run looking at a species level, this manmade population in South Carolina has still succeeded at its goal, given the Mottled Ducks here are thriving in the bounty of our conserved coastal wetlands. This new Eden in the ACE may serve as one of the last bastions for the species, as threats surround them on all sides.
The Edisto Island Open Land Trust (EIOLT) is thrilled to announce the purchase of the iconic and historically significant Store Creek Corner on Edisto Island. The property contains opportunities that touch on nearly every aspect of the land trust’s mission. The acquisition highlights the importance of land conservation, cultural heritage preservation, and environmental restoration to land and waterways. EIOLT purchased this important site from the Morris family, who have been the stewards of the property for over 40 years.
Most people recognize the location on the corner of National Scenic Byway 174 and Point of Pines Road as the original location of the Old Post Office that provided a connection to the world beyond Edisto, or they dined at the Old Post Office Restaurant that drew patrons from near and far. The historic commercial hub of the island since the early 19th century, the corner remains a prominent landmark that will have a new life as the permanent headquarters for the Edisto Island Open Land Trust. In acquiring the nearly 3-acre parcel, and adding it to the adjacent 2 acres, the land trust is protecting precious waterfront acreage on Store Creek from further development and preserving the historic commercial hub of Edisto Island.
The property contains two incredibly important historic structures that were at risk of being lost or damaged; the historic, c.1805 home fronting Point of Pines Road, and the Bailey Store building moved from Edingsville Beach in the 1880s. The Bailey Store is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Environmentally, the property presents a unique set of challenges EIOLT is well suited to tackle given its dedication to the water quality of the island. The Bailey Store contained a Gulf filling station in the mid-twentieth century and two abandoned underground storage tanks (UST) remain buried. Although removing and remediating gas tanks once filled with leaded gas adds cost and complexity to the project, it provides an opportunity for EIOLT to remediate the tanks and protect local water quality. EIOLT, in partnership with South Carolina Department of Environmental Services and the Environmental Protection Agency, are working to remove the abandoned USTs and clean the underlying soils to eliminate further risk of pollution. In addition to the environmental cleanup work, EIOLT is also in the process of determining the measures needed to stabilize and protect the historic structures.
As a non-profit organization, EIOLT is seeking the public’s help in paying back the $1.6 million loan needed to secure this property for future preservation. Anyone who wants to help with this important project is invited and encouraged to make a donation online and selecting the Historic Store Creek Corner, or mailing a gift marked “Historic Store Creek Corner” to P.O. Box 1, Edisto Island, SC 29438.
Image provided courtesy of Carolina One Real Estate
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday, it’s the pillar of our floodplain forest community, Cherrybark Oak (Quercus pagoda).
Cherrybark Oak is a native tree found throughout the coastal plain of the southeast, but strangely not in Florida. It grows predominantly in floodplain forests, preferring the sandier and drier soils found within a floodplain’s profile where the water table is high and soils rich, but only infrequent flooding. Cherrybark Oak is a member of the red oak group, meaning it has late maturing acorns, bristle tips to its leaves, and ruddy colored wood. Its leaves are a dark-green with a tan underside and deep lobes, taking on a shape somewhere in between Black Oak (Q. velutina) and Southern Red Oak (Q. falcata), leaning more towards the latter. In fact, Cherrybark Oak was for a long time considered just a subspecies of Southern Red Oak. That’s surprising to me, as the two are remarkably distinct when you look beyond the leaves. Cherrybark Oak’s most distinguishing feature is predictably its bark, which is silvery on the surface of its small rectangular scales of bark with the furrows running between them a blend dark gray and rusty orange. This bark pattern is similar to the unmistakable bark of our abundant Black Cherry (Prunus serotina), especially when young. The bark and trunk shape of Cherrybark Oak is quite distinct among South Carolina’s oaks. Cherrybark Oak’s trunk is generally straight as an arrow, with a buttress towards the base that widens and furrows with maturity. It grows rapidly to a height exceeding one-hundred feet and attaining a diameter of two to three feet in only a handful of decades. They can live for several hundred years and may reach a diameter of six feet within that time.
Their rapid growth rate, straight trunk, and high quality reddish wood make Cherrybark Oak an economically important hardwood timber species in the Southeast for use in furniture, flooring, and interior finish. It’s an especially valuable timber tree in bottomlands and floodplains where it can be grown quickly and sustainably in its natural habitat. These floodplain forests are the perfect nursery for trees, having ample water year round and periodic floods that deposit sediment to renourish the soils. Cherrybark Oaks are also wonderful trees for wildlife. Oaks collectively sustain the highest biodiversity of insect life of any genus in the Eastern United States. This makes them magnets for leaf gleaning birds and woodpeckers, and a great shade tree to sit under for any bird watcher looking to sneak a peak of transient warblers during migration. Its acorns are also an important winter food source for many species of birds and mammals, like White-tailed Deer, Wild Turkey, Blue Jays, woodpeckers, squirrels, mice, and Raccoons. Red oak acorns in gerenal, although tougher on the gut due to high tannin levels, are a more important food source for wildlife than white oaks most years. White oak acorns are larger and more palatable, but their size makes them difficult for some species to eat and they germinate soon after they hit the ground. Conversely, red oak acorns stay dormant for much longer, which keeps them edible through the harsh tail end of winter and allows them to be cached away by squirrels, jays, and woodpeckers for longer. They have a higher concentration of protein and fat as well, making them more nutritious by volume. This makes red oaks an irreplaceable staple in the winter diet of many wildlife species.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday it’s the bull’s ire, the bloodshot one-shot bug, the Cow-Killer (Dasymutilla occidentalis).
The Eastern Velvet Ant, colloquially called the Cow-Killer, is found throughout the South including all of South Carolina. Cow-Killers grow to about three-quarters of an inch in length and both sexes are equally large. They sport an unmistakable coat of shiny blood-red and jet-black velvety hair. Hence the common name of “Velvet Ant”. Females are almost entirely red up top, except for black legs and a black base to and band across their abdomen. Males have a red head, red mantle on the thorax, and red tip to the abdomen with black everywhere else.
Cow-Killers are an interesting insect with many fascinating characteristics. Firstly, despite looking like giant ants, they’re really wasps. This jives better with their solitary nature and jittery movements. Females are wingless, scurrying swiftly through the grass as they search for flowers to drink from and insect tunnels to trespass in. Males have smoky-black wings and spend their time pollinating as they search for females. Often amidst courtship, male Cow-Killers will pick up their lady and carry her to a more secluded, and assumedly romantic, spot before mating. This helps explain why males are the same size as females, an odd trait for solitary wasps, since he needs to be able to fly for two. After mating comes egg laying and Cow-Killers are parasitic wasps. Females lay their eggs in the nests of other wasps, generally large-bodied ground nesting wasps, such as the Eastern Cicada Killer (Sphecius speciosus). Within the nest the Cow-Killer egg hatches and its larva will feed on its unsuspecting roommate, killing it and commandeering the nest.
Eastern Velvet Ants get the unique “cow killer” common name from their venom. The sting of a Cow-Killer is blindingly painful and although not potent enough to kill a cow, nor really any mammal, it certainly feels like it! That’s a fact they advertise far and wide with their bold color pattern. Contrasting patterns of red and black are the universal caution sign of the animal kingdom. This is called aposematic coloration. It’s a signal to predators to “woah-up!” and think before they act. The female Cow-Killer amplifies this effect to the next level, practically embodying a neon skull and crossbones. Her fuzzy fluorescent self exaggerates this coloration as she darts and vibrates across the ground in broad daylight, making her unmissable by anything with eyes. This violent, vibrant, vibrating is intended to trigger a deep-seated danger response in your brain and subsequently get you to steer clear and resist the intrusive thought to grab the aggressively twitching red bug.
In addition to their malevolent aura, they also scream. When handled or harassed, both males and females will rub their abdomen segments together, a process called stridulation, to make a rapid high-pitched squeaking noise to further elevate their warning signal. If that doesn’t work, they’re also heavily armored. The exoskeleton of the Cow-Killer is thick and tight-fitting, like a medieval suit of plate armor. So even if an oblivious or emboldened creature does get a hold of them, they’re far more durable than they appear. This will ideally buy the Cow-Killer enough time to angrily shriek and sting their attacker in the face, in the hopes they get dropped and can live another day.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we have a spicy shrub that’s a summer safe haven for pineywoods pollinators, Coastal Sweet Pepperbush (Clethra alnifolia).
Coastal Sweet Pepperbush is found all along the East Coast and throughout the coastal plain of South Carolina. It grows on moist and generally acidic soils, often in partial shade. It’s a small deciduous shrub, growing usually chest to head height, and usually forming thickets. It does especially well in pine flatwoods where soil and light conditions are ideal for it and frequent fires free nutrients for new growth. Its leaves are alternate, fairly large, emerald-green, and widest towards the tip with that tip being pointed and its margin serrate. Its leaves also have diagonal veins that are nearly parallel, giving them a look that resembles Hazel Alder (Alnus serrulata), a shrub found along wetlands and creek banks, and the origin of our Pepperbush’s specific epithet of “alnifolia” or “Alder-leaved”. Coastal Sweet Pepperbush blooms in July and August, peaking between the two months. Each flower is about fingernail-sized, five-petalled, white with orange anthers, and arranged with dozens more flowers into a bottlebrush. These flowers have a pungent, sweet and spicy smell to them that lingers in the air like perfume around the thicket. Flower clusters are produced at the tip of each branch and held upright. Coastal Sweet Pepperbush flowers are a burst of white above the verdant brush that stands out starkly on the summer landscape. They draw in insects from the surrounding landscape and are an important source of pollen and nectar for native pollinators during the dog days of summer. Flowers mature into chains of small dry capsules that shake and scatter their seeds into the breeze. These dry fruits have a resemblance to a string of black peppercorns, and thus gives the “pepperbush” its name. These capsules are held aloft atop the plant through winter, making it an easy shrub to identify from mid-summer onward.
We technically, maybe, possibly, might, perchance, in theory, have two species of Pepperbush here in the Lowcountry. In addition to Coastal Sweet Pepperbush (C. alnifolia), there’s also Downy Sweet Pepperbush (C. tomentosa). Downy Sweet Pepperbush is much the same in appearance and ecology but has a stronger affinity to acidic sites, blooms a skosh later, and has a lot more hair across the plant. Most notably it has a silvery woolen leaf underside, hair along twigs and leaf margins, and shorter flower styles with downy hairs along them. These distinguishing features are somewhat variable across its geographic range but appear consistent within the pineywoods of South Carolina. However, the taxonomic jury is still out on whether Downy Sweet Pepperbush is a separate species or just a variety. So I’ve lumped them together here for the sake of today’s article. But do note, most of my photos are of Downy Sweet Pepperbush (Clethra tomentosa).
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday it’s the vocalist of the valley, the flitter over the floodplain, the Acadian Flycatcher (Empidonax virescens).
The Acadian Flycatcher can be found throughout the eastern United States in the warmer months, including all of South Carolina. They have a strong habitat preference for floodplain forests, stream valleys, river margins, bottomland fringes, and other wet deciduous forests. Most always seen in dim or dappled light, Acadian Flycatchers blend into the forest scenery, sitting perched upon a twig along a void of branches, as they twitch their head in search of prey. They subsist on a diet of primarily insects, snatched on the wing from the stagnant swamp air. Acadian Flycatchers are a mid-sized songbird with a large head and short legs. Their head and back are a dull olive-drab, their wings a grungy ebony-brown, and belly a sour greenish-white. Strongly contrasted pale wing-bars and a thin white eye-ring around a large, dark eye give them their only remarkable features in profile.
However, this feathered fashion of theirs is shared by nearly all of our other “Empid” Flycatchers in the Empidonax genus. This is a cadre of songbirds that is notoriously difficult to distinguish by eye, by both bird watchers and ornithologists alike. We see five species of Empids in South Carolina to include the Yellow-bellied Flycatcher (E. flaviventris), Willow Flycatcher (E. traillii), Alder Flycatcher (E. alnorum), and Least Flycatcher (E. minimus), in addition to the Acadian Flycatcher. Of these five, the Acadian Flycatcher is the only species that hangs around the Lowcountry throughout summer. The other four just pass through during migration and occasionally may nest in the mountainous margin of the State. Yet during migration, if you’re confronted with a mystery Flycatcher, there are still some subtle visual differences between all five. But I won’t delve into those here as we’d be here all day and, thankfully, each species has a different song. The song of the Acadian Flycatcher is a fast, two-note “flee-See!” said sharp and clear with a slight ring to it, starting flat on the first note then rising sharply in pitch through the second. It’s a divining ditty that signals the shoulder of a stream and the whereabouts of wetlands, water under the watchful eyes of a Flycatcher.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we have another of our large and lavish lavender legumes, Atlantic Pigeonwings (Clitoria mariana).
Atlantic Pigeonwings is a species of legume found throughout the southeastern United States and all of South Carolina. It’s most abundant on dry, sandy soils and is thus found on barrier islands, high sand ridges on the Sea Islands, and Longleaf Pine savannas on the mainland. Being a legume, it has a leg up in these thin sandy soils through its ability to fix nitrogen. Legumes are able to trade sugars to the symbiotic bacteria living inside their roots, which in turn fix nitrogen from the air. Atlantic Pigeonwings is a perennial vine that grows a small tuberous rhizome underground and a thin, wiry stem above the earth. The vine climbs through twining but rarely reaches above ankle high, more often snaking across the soil as a groundcover. Its leaves are alternate and compound, composed of three simple leaflets. There’d not be much to show for this plant if it wasn’t for it showy flowers.
Atlantic Pigeonwings’ bloom time starts in June, peaks in July, and lasts through August. Its flowers are about an inch long and twice as wide. They have that classic pea-flower form of one large lower petal and two smaller upper petals, which form a hood over the anthers and stigma. The petals are all a pale-lavender in color, with the lower petal possessing a streak of white down the center that’s flanked by bowing brindled bands of a darker purple-mauve. Atlantic Pigeonwings’ flowers are specially shaped to guide Bumble Bees straight to their anthers, forcing them to take a dusting of pollen if they’d like a sip of nectar. However, many butterflies are able to cheat this system, using an elongated proboscis like a silly-straw to steal sips at a distance. One specific butterfly, the Long-tailed Skipper (Urbanus proteus), also hosts on Atlantic Pigeonwings, laying eggs on its leaves and its caterpillars then munching away at the foliage and flowers.
Atlantic Pigeonwings has a very similar looking cousin who also grows across the Southeast, Spurred Butterfly Pea (Centrosema virginianum). I’ve covered that species previously and it differs in a few key ways from today’s Pigeonwings. Spurred Butterfly Pea is more shade tolerant, grows in damper soils, has wider leaves, climbs higher, and has a flower that’s nearly circular and with no purple streaking on the lower petal.
This week for Flora and Fauna Friday it’s the hovering hunter lurking on every wetland’s edge, the Common Green Darner (Anax junius).
The Common Green Darner is an aptly named dragonfly. It’s common, abundant, and widespread. It’s found across all of South Carolina and the whole of the contiguous United States. The Common Green Darner is a big dragonfly, growing to about three inches long. Their thorax is solid Scheele’s-green with their head a more yellowish shade and sporting two huge compound eyes. For some color contrast, in males their abdomen is a brilliant turquoise-blue and, in females, a faded cinnabar-red. Their wings are mainly clear, with a faint wash of amber along the veins and a straw-yellow pterostigma near the tip. The family name “darner” comes from the shape of their abdomen and its cerci, the terminal appendages at the abdomen’s tip. In many Darners, the cerci of both sexes are long and, when at rest, overlap with an “eye of a needle” shape, giving the whole abdomen the silhouette of a darning needle, hence ‘Darners’. Cerci, along with the epiproct in males, are collectively called “claspers”. Males use their claspers to hold onto a female’s neck while mating. The Common Green Darner is unique among our southeastern Darners for laying eggs in tandem. Males continue to cling to the female after mating, even flying in line with her, until she lays her eggs. Eggs are often laid under floating vegetation or debris on the surface of a still pond or freshwater marsh.
The baby dragonflies hatch as nymphs, called naiads. The little naiads are just as voracious of predators as ‘ma and ‘pa, lurking in the murk to ambush unsuspecting prey with their projectile mouths. The naiads will patrol their watery nursery, sometimes for several years, until large enough to eclose into adults. Adult Common Green Darners, like all other dragonflies, are skilled hunters and agile acrobats. They nourish themselves on a steady diet of anything smaller than them that catches their omnidirectional eye in the sky. Darners, unlike most dragonflies, rarely land during the day. Common Green Darners prefer to hover on the wing or course across the water at speed in search of prey.
Common Green Darners are powerful flyers and will travel long distances to find a suitable abode, staking a claim collectively at every suitable pond and puddle in sight. They also perform a multi-generational migration, similar to the Monarch butterfly. Common Green Darners fly north each spring in search of open territory. They start a family there and then pass away. Late that summer or the following year, their offspring emerge and circle back south to escape the cold and hitch their wagon in the sub-tropics. Their grandchildren emerge in fall and repeat the multi-generational circuit the following spring. This allows the species to live a nomadic lifestyle and take advantage of a much wider geographic range, becoming more abundant, staying genetically diverse, but never over-specializing to one specific habitat or eco-region.
