Classification
The St. Croix Snaketail, Ophiogomphus susbehcha, is a
clubtail dragonfly species. This means it is of the
genus Ophiogomphus, and the family Gomphidiae. The
complete classification of the St. Croix Snaketail is as
follows:
Domain: Eukarya
-organisms with true nuclei
Kingdom: Animalia
-multicellular organisms that do not
possess a cell wall
Phylum: Arthropoda
-organisms with bilateral symmetry
and an exoskeleton
Subphylum: Hexapoda
-organisms
with 3 pairs of legs
Class: Insecta
-organisms with 3 pairs of legs, a
segmented body, and a pair of antennae
Subclass: Pterygota
-possess
wings
Infraclass: Palaeoptera
-winged insects that do not fold their wings over their
abdomen
Family: Gomphidae
-yellow or green body color with
black or brown markings
Order: Odonata
-have an aquatic larval stage in
their life cycle
Suborder: Anisoptera
-have larger
forewings than hind wings
Genus: Ophiogomphus
-possess
green clubbed abdomens with snake-like pattern of white and
yellow spots
Species: Ophiogomphus susbehcha
(Vogt and Smith, 1993)
-S9 has a round spot and S10 is
yellow. Additionally, they have grey-blue eyes and black
legs.
Taxonomy information credited to Encyclopedia of Life (EOL,
2013), Dragonflies of the World (Silsby,
2001), and Dragonflies through Binoculars: A field guide
to Dragonflies of North America (Dunkle,
2000).
The latin root "ophio" means snake-like and "gomph" refers
to the wide, club-like distal portion of the dragonfly's
tail. The origin of its common name, St. Croix
Snaketail, arose from the discovery of the species in the
St. Croix River between Minnesota and Wisconsin (Vogt
and Smith, 1993).