I’ve been a bit remiss at posting regular challenges, so I’ll try to pick up the pace. Who can tell me anything about this butterfly? The most you’re getting is that it is from the Western half of the US. Credit for family, genus or species and ridiculous credit for subspecies and where it is from.
Euphydryas anicia cloudcrofti
Ted managed to pretty quickly ID this lep with stunning accuracy for a beetle-guy. You lep-ers reading this should hang your head in shame for not jumping on it faster.
As mentioned in the comments, this butterfly only flies around the resort town of Cloudcroft, New Mexico in the Sacramento Mountains. For years they have been fighting to have this listed as an endangered species, but have failed at every attempt (the most recent rejection was August 2009). The town relies almost exclusively on winter ski resorts and developers have put up a successful fight against protection. The entire area is within the Lincoln National Forest, but they have only closed the area to butterfly collecting, not development. When asking the forest service about this butterfly they unequivocally state that the checkerspot is endangered (even though it’s not). Of course they do not want you to collect it – but if you offered a few million to develop its habitat, that’s a different story.
I’m going with one of the checkerspots – family Nymphalidae, genus Euphydryas. I’m not very good with the species, ngunit sa lahat ng kulay kahel na iyon at napakaliit na mapuputing kulay ay hula ko E. anicia capella mula sa silangang bahagi ng Rocky Mountains.
Mahusay na hula – ngunit hindi lubos. Nakakakuha ka ng kredito para sa pagkuha ng mga species ng tama bagaman!
Naku, mabuti hindi iyon Euphydryas anicia cloudcrofti (Sacramento Mountains checkerspot butterfly) mula sa gitnang New Mexico, sana? Kung gayon, iyon ay isang mahusay na kuha ng isang bihirang subspecies. Kung hindi, well, ang mga checkerspot subspecies na ito ay napakahirap para sa akin. 🙂
Oo, ito ay! Dapat kong gawin itong mas mahirap… o ihinto ang pag-post ng mga larawang na-upload ko na sa Butterflies of America! May. Kahit na, kudos sa pagkuha nito ng tama, kailangan pa ring maghukay sa mga subs ng anicia, ang mga checkerspot na ito ay maaaring maging sakit ng ulo sa ID.
Nandoon ako noong nakaraang tag-araw at nakakuha ng ilang magagandang kuha ng pambihirang butterfly na ito. Talagang karaniwan ito sa mga kalsada sa kagubatan sa paligid ng bayan. Within an hour I saw 4-5 puddling – made for a pretty easy photo-op.
ito ay may! Talaga, I didn’t find the photo at BofA until after I’d made my 2nd guess, honest. Those points are mine! Talaga, I was using BugGuide when I settled on anicia – I wasn’t sure about it but chose it because of the very orange capella subspecies. When you confirmed anicia it was then easier to search for other subspecies. I came across a photo of cloudcrofti on a FWS conservation plan document and it was a dead ringer.
Finding species/subspecies of highly restricted geographical occurrence is one of the best things about this business (taxonomists arguments about validity notwithstanding)! There must be something special about the Cloudcroft area – there is a buprestid beetle known only from that area that I looked for once (unsuccessfully).