The strongest cold front of the winter is scheduled to blast in tomorrrow and the butterflies at the National Butterfly Center were out enjoying one last glorious warm day. The wind was from the south yesterday however today it had already switched from the north and despite that, the temperature was still in the 80's. Now sure of the effect of this on the species composition of butterflies. There were no real Mexican rarities but a few local uncommon species were out, some pretty fresh. Best was this Caballo (formerly Potrillo) Skipper.
A White-patched Skipper was close by.
And later a Texas Powdered-Skipper popped up in the same Azureum patch.
And with it a fresh Marius Hairstreak. It was a lifer for visiting butterflier Jeff Pavlik who I notice is a couple butterflies ahead of me on eButterfly. But I recently discovered a few Australian lifers while putting bugs into iNaturalist so maybe I can get back ahead.
Here's a good looking Dusky-blue Groundstreak.
And the humble but still sharp looking Gray Hairstreak.
John Rosford found the bug of the day. I have yet to ID this litle lady beetle but I'm pretty sure it's a lifer.
35 species is pretty good for mid January. In a couple of days there won't be any and then we start the slow build up into spring.
- Pipevine Swallowtail 2
- Southern Dogface 2
- Large Orange Sulphur 2
- Lyside Sulphur 6
- Little Yellow 5
- Sleepy Orange 2
- Marius Hairstreak 1
- Gray Hairstreak 3
- Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 3
- Dusky-blue Groundstreak 1
- Ceraunus Blue 4
- Reakirt's Blue 1
- Fatal Metalmark 1
- American Snout 10
- Mexican Fritillary 1
- Texan Crescent 1
- Phaon Crescent 4
- Red Admiral 4
- White Peacock 3
- Mexican Bluewing 1
- Monarch 2
- Queen 4
- Dorantes Longtail 1
- Brown Longtail 2
- Potrillo Skipper 1
- Texas Powdered-Skipper 1
- White-patched Skipper 1
- Funereal Duskywing 1
- White Checkered-Skipper 5
- Tropical Checkered-Skipper 2
- Laviana White-Skipper 5
- Clouded Skipper 4
- Fiery Skipper 3
- Sachem 2
- Eufala Skipper 6
