Friday, April 24, 2015

Chestnut Crescent at National Butterfly Center, 4/24/15

With a warm, humid, windy day I decided to take a day off from spring bird migration and check out the butterflies at the National Butterfly Center south of Mission.  There were plenty of Texan Crescents out and I almost passed this bug off as another till I noticed the gray underside of the forewing.  Chestnut Cresent!  I had seen Phyciodes argentea only once before so this was a treat.




Here's the common Texan Crescent for comparison, Phyciodes texana.



With the southerly winds, Pierids were on the move, including my first Florida Whites for the year.  




Is this another?  Nope.  the blue antenna knobs say it's a Great Southern White.


Here's my list of 44 species for the day.

  • Black Swallowtail 1
  • Giant Swallowtail 1
  • Florida White 4
  • Checkered White 15
  • Great Southern White 5
  • Cloudless Sulphur 3
  • Large Orange Sulphur 6
  • Lyside Sulphur 6
  • Little Yellow 4
  • Sleepy Orange 1
  • Dainty Sulphur 3
  • Gray Hairstreak 3
  • Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 4
  • Western Pygmy-Blue 1
  • Reakirt's Blue 3
  • Fatal Metalmark 1
  • American Snout 2
  • Gulf Fritillary 2
  • Zebra Heliconian 1
  • Texan Crescent 10
  • Chestnut Crescent 1
  • Vesta Crescent 1
  • Phaon Crescent 80
  • Pearl Crescent 8
  • American Lady 1
  • Red Admiral 6
  • Tawny Emperor 25
  • Monarch 3
  • Queen 6
  • Guava Skipper 1
  • Brown Longtail 1
  • Funereal Duskywing 1
  • White Checkered-Skipper 15
  • Tropical Checkered-Skipper 8
  • Laviana White-Skipper 6
  • Common Sootywing 5
  • Julia's Skipper 1
  • Fawn-spotted Skipper 1
  • Clouded Skipper 4
  • Southern Skipperling 4
  • Fiery Skipper 3
  • Common Mellana 1
  • Celia's Roadside-Skipper 3
  • Eufala Skipper 6