rusty snaketail

Rusty snaketail is a medium-sized dragonfly. The thorax is bright green. There are two thin, brown shoulder stripes on each side but no bold stripes — the lateral and mid-frontal stripes are reduced and inconspicuous.

The abdomen of the male is slender, yellow above, and rusty brown on the sides. There is a thin, white, snake-like stripe near the bottom (sublaterally) on each side. The undulating white stripe gives this genus the name “snaketails”. There are no distinct top spots. There are black V-shaped markings or blotches on abdominal segments 7 through 10. Segments 8, 9, and 10 are expanded into a noticeable “club”. The female is similarly colored but duller.

The face is green. The large compound eyes are yellowish-green to bluish-green on the male, brownish on the female. They do not meet at the top of the head. The area behind the compound eyes at the top of the head (occiput) is bright green.

The wings are clear except for dark stigmas. The wing triangle, a section of intersecting veins about 20% of the way from the base to the wingtip, is about the same size on the forewing and the hindwing.

The legs are black, relatively short, and have yellow longitudinal stripes.

Total length: 1¾″ to 2⅛″

Common green darner (Anax junius) is much larger. The eyes meet at the top of the head.

Silty rivers and large silty streams with moderately fast current.

Mid-May to mid-August

Sources

18, 24, 29, 30, 82, 83

Biodiversity occurrence data published by: Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas (accessed through the Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas Portal, bellatlas.umn.edu, 8/2/2025).

Haarstad, J. 1997. The dragonflies of selected eastern Minnesota rivers. Report submitted to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Unpaged.

Steffens, W. P., and W. A. Smith. 1999. Status survey for special concern and endangered dragonflies of Minnesota: population status, inventory and monitoring recommendations. Final report submitted to the Natural Heritage and Nongame Research Program, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. 54 pp.

Widespread and fairly common

Superfamily
Some taxonomic sources, including iNaturalist.org and the NCBI database, place the family Gomphidae in the superfamily Gomphoidea under the suborder Anisoptera. This reflects a modern classification based on recent phylogenetic studies. Other sources, such as BugGuide.net and Catalogue of Life, follow a more traditional classification that places Gomphidae directly under Anisoptera with no superfamily. This difference is not a simplified ranking, but rather a reflection of the ongoing process of updating taxonomy as new evidence becomes available.

Genus
This species was formerly classified as Gomphus rupinsulensis. In an attempt to clarify the relationships of species in the genus Gomphus (Needham, 1947) , five subgenera were proposed. This species was placed in the subgenus Ophiogomphus. In later years, several other subgenera were defined. Nine of the genera were grouped in what was called the Gomphus complex. A recent phylogenetic analysis (Ware, et al., 2017) raised all nine subgenera in the complex to genus level, and Gomphus rupinsulensis became Ophiogomphus rupinsulensis.

Rusty Snaketail
Bonnie Ott

Rusty Snaketail (Ophiogomphus rupinsulensis)
Steve Collins

Rusty Snaketail
Ryan Rasmussen

"Rusty Snaketail Dragonfly"
7/29/2017

Location: Norman County, MN

An adult male Rusty Snaketail dragonfly.