Species: Aeshna juncea
Encyclopedia of Puget Sound
A pale species, bluish areas being ampler than in most other Aeschnas. Face greenish blue, more or less overspread with brownish except on sides of the frons and facial lobes of postclypeus. Black crossbands on fronto-clypeal suture and on both front and rear margins of labrum. Black T spot above has an ill-defined front margin; its stalk is widened to its confluence with black of vertex. Top of vertical tubercle broadly yellow, occiput obscurely so. All pale stripes of thorax broad and all carinae narrowly black. Two stripes on front broadly widened laterally under crest. Between the two on each side, a short intervening half stripe terminates wide at top and tapers to a point halfway down toward spiracle. Legs brown, paler basally. Wings dull hyaline, with tawny costa and stigma. Cells in fork of radial sector and on both radial and median planates rather more numerous and irregular than is usual in Aeschna. Abdomen brown, broadly marked with blue; black on all carinae and on joinings of middle segments. Two swollen basal segments have a middorsal yellow line; sides of 2 streaked with brown and yellow, and all yellow below auricle in male. Each auricle armed with four minute teeth. Segment 3 moderately constricted. Darkening segments beyond 3 have usual spots larger than in other species, postero-dorsal one increasing markedly to rearward, covering most of depressed dorsum of 10. Mid-dorsal tubercle of 10 low and erect. The nymphs of Aeschna are among the most graceful of odonate nymphs, streamlined of body and neatly patterned in markings of green and brown that tend to run in longitudinal bands when among the green stems of water plants, in camouflage. The head is a little flattened. The legs are slender and pale, usually ornamented with rings of brown or of lighter and darker greens. The abdomen is widest in the middle and tapers gracefully to its slender tip (Needham and Westfall, 1955).
Classification
Insecta
Odonata
Aeshnidae
Aeshna
NatureServe
Classification
Ecology and Life History
A pale species, bluish areas being ampler than in most other Aeschnas. Face greenish blue, more or less overspread with brownish except on sides of the frons and facial lobes of postclypeus. Black crossbands on fronto-clypeal suture and on both front and rear margins of labrum. Black T spot above has an ill-defined front margin; its stalk is widened to its confluence with black of vertex. Top of vertical tubercle broadly yellow, occiput obscurely so. All pale stripes of thorax broad and all carinae narrowly black. Two stripes on front broadly widened laterally under crest. Between the two on each side, a short intervening half stripe terminates wide at top and tapers to a point halfway down toward spiracle. Legs brown, paler basally. Wings dull hyaline, with tawny costa and stigma. Cells in fork of radial sector and on both radial and median planates rather more numerous and irregular than is usual in Aeschna. Abdomen brown, broadly marked with blue; black on all carinae and on joinings of middle segments. Two swollen basal segments have a middorsal yellow line; sides of 2 streaked with brown and yellow, and all yellow below auricle in male. Each auricle armed with four minute teeth. Segment 3 moderately constricted. Darkening segments beyond 3 have usual spots larger than in other species, postero-dorsal one increasing markedly to rearward, covering most of depressed dorsum of 10. Mid-dorsal tubercle of 10 low and erect. The nymphs of Aeschna are among the most graceful of odonate nymphs, streamlined of body and neatly patterned in markings of green and brown that tend to run in longitudinal bands when among the green stems of water plants, in camouflage. The head is a little flattened. The legs are slender and pale, usually ornamented with rings of brown or of lighter and darker greens. The abdomen is widest in the middle and tapers gracefully to its slender tip (Needham and Westfall, 1955).