[Ctleps-l] Crescent (Phyciodes) species in CT

Steve Walter swalter15 at verizon.net
Mon Sep 9 21:23:49 EDT 2013


In years gone by, I spent more time in early summer in northern Connecticut.
The presence of fresh crescents in June caught my attention. By this time,
the spring brood of Pearl Crescent is worn or gone in most places (certainly
in southern New York). The second brood is a tough get at the very end of
June. When I came across the fresh June individuals, I found them to be
noticeably on the large side. I made a point of trying to photograph them. I
also brought this up at meetings of the NYC Butterfly Club. I had stopped
thinking about it, as unfortunately I haven't been getting up to Connecticut
as much.

 

Upon reading Lenny's post, I checked my photo record database. I found an
entry from Great Mountain Forest 6/19/05 and another from what I call
Hubbard Pines (Kristine Wallstrom's residence) 6/5/06. I then went to the
corresponding pictures and found orange antennae clubs jumping out at me.
However, going through my other pictures, I have to say that there are other
individuals (from various times and places) with orange. If I can detect a
pattern, orange seems to be more prevalent in summer and fall broods than
the spring. But I could be dealing with non- diagnostic tale females. Of
course, I can't tell size from pictures. As I said, I found the "species" of
interest to be noticeably larger in the field.

 

Steve Walter

Bayside, NY

 

From: ctleps-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu
[mailto:ctleps-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Epmanshell at aol.com
Sent: Monday, September 09, 2013 8:08 PM
To: ctleps-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [Ctleps-l] Crescent (Phyciodes) species in CT

 

The CT Butterfly Atlas (2007: 240) noted that specimens from CT listed under
the name Pearl Crescent (Phyciodes tharos) may represent a complex of
closely related sibling species. 

 

Over the last few days, there has been an interesting discussion on the MA
listserv about the fact the fact that there appears to be a Crescent
(Phyciodes) species in MA different that the true Pearl Crescent that can,
under limited circumstances, be identified in the field.

 

Specifically, males of this Crescent species apparently can recognized by
the color of the tips of the antennae- black in the case of the true Pearl
Crescent (P. tharos); orange in the case of this Crescent species. 

 

This identification criterion totally breaks down in the case female
Crescents where it is easy to find females of the same Crescent species with
a mixture of orange, black and multicolored orange and black antennal clubs.

 

On the 7/14/2013  CBA field to Flaherty Field Trial Area, East Windsor, a
number of trip participants photographed an aberrant Crescent that appears
to be an example of this Crescent species.  It was a male and the orange
tips of the antennal clubs were easily visible in photographs sent to me.  

 

Surely other CT butterfly observers have seen this potential Crescent
species in the state but simply lumped it under the name Pearl Crescent.

 

Lenny Brown

Wallingford    

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