La Puerta Tract, Lower Rio Grande NWR, 6/21/14

Mike Rickard and I were going to work over Yturria Brush this morning, but when we got there we decided to drive on down the road to La Puerta tract just east of Rio Grande City.  He had been there years ago and it was the first time for me.  We eventually found some great native habitat but conditions were dry after the heat of the past week and we did not see too many species of butterflies.

This Desert Checkered Skipper was very cooperative.  As I study checkered-skippers more, I am finding they are pretty easy to ID.  Desert always has a bigger, brighter row of submarginal spots on the forewing than Tropical and an evenly checkered fringe like White.  But White-checkered Skipper lacks the leading spot.  So IMHO this makes Desert Checkered Skipper the most attractive of the three.

The small dark spots on the leading edge of the pale underwing is also a good field mark.

This brilliant Mexican Fritillary is the first I've seen in quite a while.

All total we only saw eleven species of butterflies in two and a half hours.  But we saw some other interesting stuff.  This large robberfly is pretty imposing.

I did not know that Greater Earless Lizard occurred in the RGV.  But after checking the field guide after getting home I found their range extends into Starr County which is where we were.

We also saw a number of hard to find Tamaulipan thorn forest plants like Bernardia myricifolia, Chomonque and a new one for me, Barreta (Helietta parviflora).  So we decided when they get some more rain out there we'll return.