Yesterday Tom Forwood found a Gautemalan Cracker at the National Butterfly Center. Tom is the new Superintendent at nearby Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park and is a fine naturalist. I ran over and Alex told me where to look. It took about a minute to find the Guatemalan Cracker in the row of Retama trees where it was feeding on sap. The common name comes from the specific epithet guatemalena. Many butterfly common names are Anglicizations of the the Latin name.
The Brown-banded Skipper was still hanging out by the old visitors center.
Long-tailed skippers are finally showing after a long absense. Here's White-striped Longtail, Long-tailed Skipper and Brown Longtail.
This Red-bordered Pixie was not doing a very good of hiding under this leaf. Many of the brightly colored tropical metalmarks can be found hiding under leaves,
Finally a White Peacock after months without seeing one.
Mexican Fritillaries were out.
I guess this is just a Common Mellana. It was down in the "ditch" in the shade, atypical of where I usually see it up in the flowers. But nothing else in the Mexican guide seems to fit.
Last butterfly of the day was this fresh Mournful Duskywing.
The Valley has gotten some rain this past weeks and it's cooled off a tiny bit. It feels like fall!
- Pipevine Swallowtail 3
- Giant Swallowtail 5
- Southern Dogface 1
- Large Orange Sulphur 15
- Lyside Sulphur 10
- Little Yellow 5
- Gray Hairstreak 1
- Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak 3
- Ceraunus Blue 8
- Fatal Metalmark 2
- Red-bordered Pixie 1
- American Snout 10
- Gulf Fritillary 8
- Mexican Fritillary 3
- Bordered Patch 10
- Phaon Crescent 20
- White Peacock 1
- Mexican Bluewing 8
- Guatemalan Cracker 1
- Tropical Leafwing 8
- Tawny Emperor 15
- Queen 8
- White-striped Longtail 1
- Long-tailed Skipper 1
- Brown Longtail 5
- Brown-banded Skipper 1
- White-patched Skipper 1
- Mournful Duskywing 1
- White Checkered-Skipper 6
- Tropical Checkered-Skipper 20
- Laviana White-Skipper 6
- Clouded Skipper 6
- Southern Skipperling 1
- Whirlabout 2
- Southern Broken-Dash 2
- Common Mellana 2
- Celia's Roadside-Skipper 6
- Eufala Skipper 5
