What the Heck is this ?.....

Clay Taylor CTaylor at swarovskioptik.com
Fri May 24 11:03:29 EDT 2002


All -

    Not included in my 5/23 field report was this butterfly, seen along the lower part of the Shannaghan Road powerlines.   When I first saw it fluttering and landing alongside the dirt road, my initial impression was Pearl Crescent.  A closer look showed me the obvious tattered wings and the VERY light undersides, but I could see the small crescent along the outer margin, so I passed it off as a large, very worn PC.

    I continued down the road for 15 or 20 minutes, and as I passed through the area again while on the way back to my car, I spotted the butterfly perched and basking.  The extremely dark and contrasty upper hindwing pattern brought me up short.   While I realize that PCs come in a myriad of forms and patterns, this was so unlike anything I had ever seen that I netted it and shot a few pictures in the CD case.   As soon as I released it, it flew to a leaf and sat for at least a minute and a half, allowing the other photos.

    While I was hoping for something more uncommon, the lack of lots of silver markings on the under hindwing kept me thinking that it was still a PC.   However, once I returned home, downloaded the pics, and started looking at the books, (Scott, Opler and Glassberg) it got confusing.  The only Crescents that show very dark, contrasty upper hindwing patterns all had similarly dark and contrasty forewings.   This guy has lots of light areas starting from about 1/3 of the way out the forewing, similar to many of the "orange" forms of PC.

Opinions, anyone?

Clay Taylor
ctaylor at att.net 






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