Unidentified Butterfly at Durham Meadows

[Clay Taylor]

All - 

At 6:40am I saw Fred's post, immediately e-mailed "Red Admiral" to him, and then went about making my breakfast.    A few minutes later, I read John's post and darn near choked on my mouthful of cereal - aw, shoot, John's right and I did it again!    Not the first time, and probably not the last time, that I fired from the hip without thinking.

I finished up my breakfast, was getting ready to travel to Cranston, and the little voice in my head said I HAD to look at the picture again.   The spotting on the forewing tip just didn't look correct for an American Lady, and in Scott's Bflys of NA, the West Coast Lady looked to be a better match.    Obviously not possible, right?

OK, now I tried to find an UNDERSIDE view of a Red Admiral - not as easy as you might think.   Scott - no.   Opler & Malikul - no.    Hah!    Kaufman & Brock to the rescue.    

Yup, chalk one up to the ol' hip-shot method.    Red Admiral it is.   Whew!

This is a great example of how we all know the "easy" way to ID a butterfly, and a view / photograph that shows the "hard" part becomes a real challenge.    Heck, the field guides don't show the underside of a Red Admiral, probably because seeing only THAT view in the field is unusual.   In real life the critter would eventually have flown, and it then would have been an "easy" identification.

Clay Taylor
Moodus, CT
ctaylor at att.net 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: jhimmel at comcast.net 
  To: FredNowak at comcast.net ; CTLEPS-L at lists.yale.edu 
  Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 10:58 PM
  Subject: RE: Unidentified Butterfly at Durham Meadows


  Looks like a dark Painted Lady.

  John

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  John Himmelman
  Killingworth, CT
  jhimmel at comcast.net
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  "Discovering Amphibians, Frogs and Salamanders of the Northeast"
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    -----Original Message-----
    From: owner-ctleps-l at lists.yale.edu [mailto:owner-ctleps-l at lists.yale.edu]On Behalf Of Fred Nowak
    Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 9:39 PM
    To: CTLEPS-L at lists.yale.edu
    Subject: Unidentified Butterfly at Durham Meadows


    Adrian Nichols took these photographs at Durham Meadows on Saturday on his way home to Chester after the Flaherty walk. Can anyone identify this butterfly? 

    Thanks.

    Donna

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