Weather was forecast to be cloudy, cool and drippy so I wasn't sure how to spend this New Years Day. I wanted to get up early and go birding but the idiot neighbors celebrated in idiot fashin last night and the neighborhood sounded like a war zone. Hope no one got hit by celebratory gun fire. But the morning was bright and warmer than I expected so I ran over to the National Butterfly Center. The sun would pop out periodically and the butterflie activity would pick up. Best butterfly for the new year was this handsome Falcate Skipper.
Jon Rosford has become quite the insect photographer. He called me over to show me a caterpillar feeding on the Texas Lantana. He knew it was a hairstreak and thought maybe a Lantana Scrub-Hairstreak. Well I've never seen a hairstreak caterpillar so I was happy to get some shots. After getting home I checked out photos on the BOA site and it didn't quite seem to match to me. So I thought "How about Marius Hairstreak?" Photos seemed to match. I entered the photos into iNaturalist and Marius Hairstreak was the AI driven conclusion also.
Here's an adult Marius Hairstrak. They have been fairly common this fall/winter. I saw one just like it at Quinta Mazatlan yesterday.
Quite few butterflies were on the wing but nothing else rare. I may enter a list later.
