Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Sym­petrum vicinum is widely dis­trib­uted through­out much of North Amer­ica. The species oc­curs through­out the most of the U.S. ex­cept the desert South­west, the north­ern Rocky Moun­tains, penin­su­lar Florida and the Gulf coasts of Louisiana and Texas. It's found in south­east­ern and ex­treme south­west­ern Canada. (Need­ham, et al., 2000)

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic
  • native

Habi­tat

Sym­petrum vicinum in­hab­its marshes, lakes, ponds and bogs in areas that are usu­ally some­what wooded. The ponds that this species in­hab­its must be per­ma­nent and have slow flow­ing water. (Need­ham, et al., 2000)

• Habitat Regions
• temperate
• freshwater

• Aquatic Biomes
• lakes and ponds
• rivers and streams

• Wetlands
• marsh
• swamp
• bog

• Other Habitat Features
• urban
• suburban
• estuarine

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Sym­petrum vicinum has a dull yel­low face, which in males be­comes red­dish to­ward ma­tu­rity. The pterotho­rax is red on the front while the sides are an olive color. This species has re­duced ve­na­tion with hya­line (clear, col­or­less) wings with a yel­low base. The ab­domen is slen­der and red, and is lighter than in other species of Sym­petrum. (Em­mitt, 2000)

• Other Physical Features
• ectothermic
• heterothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• sexes colored or patterned differently

• Average mass

  5.5 g

  0.19 oz

• Range length

  26 to 35 mm

  1.02 to 1.38 in

• Range wingspan

  21 to 23 mm

  0.83 to 0.91 in

De­vel­op­ment

Eggs hatch in the early spring of the fol­low­ing year after over­win­ter­ing. They emerge when the water tem­per­a­ture reaches about 10 de­grees Cel­sius. At the be­gin­ning of the first free-liv­ing lar­val sta­dium (pe­riod be­tween one molt and the next) ecd­y­sis (shed­ding of the outer skin) oc­curs. This lar­val stage is re­stricted to the spring and sum­mer sea­sons. After molt­ing, the larva in­creases in size and changes in col­or­ing can occur. This process takes place over about an hour.

After going through a se­ries of molts S. vicinum be­gins show­ing signs of be­com­ing an adult drag­on­fly. These signs in­clude: setae on the dor­sum of the head, con­trac­tion of the labium and mi­crotrichia on the wings. It can take an in­di­vid­ual any­where from one to seven weeks to be­come ready to emerge as an adult. The first adults to emerge of this species are seen in late June. Once an in­di­vid­ual has be­come an adult, it has two main goals: to eat and to mate. The pre-re­pro­duc­tive stage in S. vicinum can last any­where from 30-87 days, de­pend­ing on the lat­i­tude where they are found. Once they reach sex­ual ma­tu­rity, in­di­vid­u­als seek a mate, lay eggs and die soon af­ter­ward. (Cor­bet, 1999)

• Development - Life Cycle
• metamorphosis

Re­pro­duc­tion

Once sex­ual ma­tu­rity has been reached males begin look­ing for mates. When a fe­male is found and the male de­ter­mines vi­su­ally and phys­i­cally that she is of the same species, cop­u­la­tion will take place. The male places sperm into the fe­male's gen­i­tal tract. The eggs are laid in sum­mer and "com­plete kata­trep­sis" (em­bryo rev­o­lu­tion) oc­curs in au­tumn. The in­sects then pass the win­ter as fully formed em­bryos. Once ovipo­si­tion has taken place the sexes sep­a­rate and stop fly­ing in tan­dem. (Cor­bet, 1999)

• Key Reproductive Features
• seasonal breeding
• sexual
• fertilization
  • internal
• oviparous

• Breeding season

  Late summer to early autumn

There is no parental in­vest­ment be­yond lay­ing of eggs.

• Parental Investment
• pre-fertilization
  • protecting
    • female

Lifes­pan/Longevity

The life cycle of this drag­on­fly is ap­prox­i­mately one year.

Be­hav­ior

Sym­petrum vicinum is a non­ter­ri­to­r­ial species. After mat­ing, the male will keep hold of the fe­male and they fly as a pair dur­ing ovipo­si­tion. Dom­i­nance hi­er­ar­chies have also been ob­served in S. vicinum. Dis­putes be­tween com­pet­ing males lead to an or­derly rank­ing of in­di­vid­u­als. Be­hav­ior can be af­fected by tem­per­a­ture. If an in­di­vid­ual be­gins the morn­ing in the shade it some­times takes six extra hours for the in­sect's first flight of the day. (McMil­lian, 2000)

• Key Behaviors
• flies
• diurnal
• motile
• hibernation
• dominance hierarchies

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Odonates have highly de­vel­oped sight. The large com­pound eyes are used to cap­ture prey. (Mer­ritt and Cum­mins, 1984)

• Communication Channels
• chemical

• Perception Channels
• visual
• infrared/heat
• tactile
• chemical

Food Habits

The lar­vae of this species are sprawlers. They lie on pond bot­toms and at­tack prey as it comes into their im­me­di­ate area. The fam­ily of drag­on­flies that in­cludes S. vicinum, Li­bel­lul­i­dae, are all perch­ing adults. This means that they sit and wait for their prey (small fly­ing in­sects) to fly by. Once they see it, they take off and pur­sue it, with an amaz­ing suc­cess rate of 97%. The study record­ing these data was done through keen ob­ser­va­tions from binoc­u­lars and video recorders. Trays were set out within patches of Eleocharis to max­i­mize the test re­sults by lim­it­ing the po­ten­tial land­ing site area within two ar­ti­fi­cial ponds.

Foods eaten by lar­val S. vicinum in­clude medium-sized water fleas and rel­a­tives of Clado­cera; Os­tra­coda; Oligochaeta; bur­row­ing and climb­ing flies of the fam­ily Chi­rono­mi­dae and Cer­ato­pogo­nidae. Sym­petrum vicinum will also eat larva of smaller drag­on­fly species. (Cor­bet, 1999; Ol­berg, et al., 2000)

• Primary Diet
• carnivore
  • insectivore
  • eats non-insect arthropods

• Animal Foods
• insects
• aquatic or marine worms
• aquatic crustaceans
• zooplankton

Pre­da­tion

When spot­ted by preda­tors the lar­vae form sim­ply lies im­mo­bile. Large in­di­vid­u­als, when at­tacked by the snake Regina al­leni will ac­tu­ally bite the snake's mouth, which makes the snake bleed. Usu­ally the snake will let go of the drag­on­fly larva. For some rea­son these snakes swal­low drag­on­fly lar­vae head first. It has also been hy­poth­e­sized, but not doc­u­mented, that in­di­vid­u­als may pro­duce sounds to ward off preda­tors. (Cor­bet, 1999; Ol­berg, et al., 2000)

• Known Predators

  • spinycheek crayfish (Oronectes limosus)
  • rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss )
  • sunfish species (Lepomis)
  • striped swamp snake (Regina alleni)
  • fish that feed in shallow fresh waters (Actinopterygii)
  • possibly also other dragonfly species (Odonata)
  • mantises (Mantidae)
  • crows, jays ,and magpies (Corvidae)
  • green frogs (Lithobates clamitans clamitans)
  • turtles (Testudines)

Ecosys­tem Roles

Drag­on­flies help keep in­sect pop­u­la­tions at a sta­ble level. Sym­petrum vicinum has a com­men­sal re­la­tion­ship with the species men­tioned below and are also par­a­sitized by cer­tain species of mites. Par­a­sitic chi­rono­mid fly lar­vae can be found on the back of the head, pro­tho­rax, wing sheaths and legs of S. vicinum. Spiroxys con­tor­tus uses S. vicinum as an in­ter­me­di­ate host (tur­tles are the de­fin­i­tive host). (White, et al., 1980)

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Drag­on­flies can be used to pro­tect hu­mans from mos­qui­toes and black­flies. One ex­per­i­ment has show that lar­val species of Bradinopyga gem­i­nata were able to de­stroy an en­tire pop­u­la­tion of mos­qui­toes within a 194-liter drum in a mat­ter of hours. Ap­pli­ca­tion of this method would allow pest con­trol of mos­qui­toes with­out the use of chem­i­cals. Sev­eral stud­ies have show that Sym­petrum species are ap­par­ently im­mune to pol­lu­tants. This could pos­si­bly help hu­mans, in the long run, if we can de­velop ways to deal with pol­lu­tants if un­der­stood in de­tail. (Cor­bet, 1999)

• Positive Impacts
• research and education
• controls pest population

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

Larva can some­times de­plete fish fry pop­u­la­tions that fish­er­men want to cul­ture. (Cor­bet, 1999)

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

This species is se­cure and cur­rently not of any con­ser­va­tion con­cern.

• IUCN Red List

  Not Evaluated

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

• State of Michigan List

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

Renee Sher­man Mul­crone (ed­i­tor).

Joshua Winchell (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, Kerry Yurewicz (ed­i­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Ref­er­ences

Cor­bet, P. 1999. Drag­on­flies:Be­hav­ior and Ecol­ogy of Odonata. Ithaca, New York: Cor­nell Uni­ver­sity Press.

Em­mitt, R. 2000. "Yel­low-legged Mead­owhawk" (On-line). Ac­cessed March 20, 2002 at http://​www.​rlephoto.​com/​odes/​yellow_​legged-meadowhawk01.​htm.

McMil­lian, V. 2000. Ag­gre­gat­ing Be­hav­ior Dur­ing Ovipo­si­tion in the Drag­on­fly *Sym­petrum vicinum* (Hagen)(Odonata:Li­bel­lul­i­dae). The Amer­i­can Mid­land Nat­u­ral­ist, 144 no. 1: 11-18.

Mer­ritt, R., K. Cum­mins. 1984. An In­tro­duc­tion to the Aquatic In­sects of North Amer­ica. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Pub­lish­ing Com­pany.

Need­ham, J., M. West­fall, M. May. 2000. Drag­on­flies of North Amer­ica. Gainesville, FL: Sci­en­tific Pub­lish­ers.

Ol­berg, R., A. Wor­thing­ton, K. Ve­na­tor. 2000. Prey pur­suit and in­ter­cep­tion in drag­on­flies. Jour­nal of Comp. Phys­i­ol­ogy, 186: 155-162.

White, T., J. Weaver, R. Fox. 1980. Phoretic re­la­tion­ships be­tween Chi­rono­mi­dae(Diptera) and ben­thic macroin­ver­te­brates. EnN, 91: 69-74.