American Spiketails are large black or dark brown dragonflies with similar bright yellow thoracic stripes and species-specific abdominal markings. Relatively small, slightly separated or just touching eyes are either bright blue or bright green. They seem surprisingly unwary for such large dragonflies, easier to approach for photography or capture than most. They fly over sunny clearings, typically quite low, while foraging for small insects and then perch by hanging in herbaceous or shrubby vegetation right out in the open. They may be watching for flying prey from their perch. Wasps and bees seem to be common prey for these large dragonflies. Some individuals hang much like darners; others extend out from a branch at a 45° angle. Males are much more often seen in this situation than females, and they may be looking for females as well as prey. They do not wander as far from breeding habitats as do the similarly large darners that feed from the air. Males are also seen flying long beats up and down streams, from moderate-sized rushing rocky ones to shallow, mossy forest trickles, depending on the species. Cruising beats are often long, so expect to wait until a given individual returns. Mating pairs are rarely seen, but copulation is lengthy, lasting an hour or more, usually in trees near or away from water. Females tend to oviposit after midday, flying along and stopping suddenly to hover over a shallow spot and jab eggs into the substrate with pointed and spikelike (thus the group name) ovipositor, really a “pseudo-ovipositor” formed from the prolonged subgenital plate. Oviposition movements are characteristic of the genus and have been called “bouncing” or compared with a sewing-machine needle. Other black and yellow dragonflies are easily distinguished. Superficially similar river cruisers have much larger eyes and a single stripe on either side of the thorax; they tend to be on larger streams and hang straight down when perched. Dragonhunter has a different pattern on both thorax and abdomen.

1. Paulson, Dennis R. (2011) Dragonflies and Damselflies of the East