National Butterfly Center, 11/18/25

The Texas Butterfly Festival has come and gone but new butterfly watchers are arriving in the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas almost daily.  The assemblage of amatuer lepidopteristsa and warm south wind from Mexico results in lots of butterflies being seen in the RGV.  Last I saw yesterday the running species count for the month of November at the National Butterfly Center was at 125.  Amazing!  There have been no new records or mega finds but lots of good stuff is being found by those out plying the trails.

I've been taking it easy and trying not to get burned out.  Consequently I have missed a lot of the good stuff but I'm not complaining.  Here's a little of what I've seen the past few days starting with yesterday's Guatemalan Cracker.

I ran over yesterday hoping for the Hoary Skipper but I missed it.  So I had to glean from left over Glazed Pellicia, White-patched Skipper and Red-bordered Pixies.

Finally we are seeing a few Julia's Skippers.

The male Silver emperor was putting on a show.  Where's the blue?  You just have to change your angle!  Blue coloration of birds and butterflies are often caused by by microscopic structural reflections and not blue pigment.

Malachites are occuring daily.

I pointed visiting birders to this Guava Skipper.  They were grateful.

Mexican Bluewings have been in short supply.

But not the rare Mexican Crescent.

Here's the morning Ruby-spotted Swallowtail.  We have seen nearly a dozen this fall.

As I was leaving one more butterfly caught my eye.  Woops.  Look at those antennae.  This is the diurnal White-tipped Black Moth.

With good wind and good observers in the field, we're bound to get something remarkable in the coming weeks.