Is this Charidryas harrisii - Chlosyne harrisii

Moved

… Tony-2, 6 December, 2006 - 4:06pm

Placing in Harris's

based mainly on the pale color and the small white dot in the black edge of the FW. Checked it against my specimens of the 2 species and it fits harrisii rather than nycteis. I realise that NB is not Wisconsin!

… Tony-2, 6 December, 2006 - 4:06pm

Moved

Moved from Butterflies.

… john and jane balaban, 2 December, 2006 - 7:24pm

I think it is

I think this is C. harrisii, but it's a lot easier to tell by its underside. I believe the rule of thumb is that if the dark spots on upperside of the hindwing touch the dark band on the lower margin, it's C. harrisii. I only see one touching, but that may be enough? (Sorry to get distracted by the Crescent issue)

… Jay Cossey, 19 June, 2006 - 2:21pm

Checkerspot

I think it's a Silvery Checkerspot (Chlosyne nycteis). The shape of the wings (wider) and the prominence of the spots on the hind wing distinguish it from the Harris' Checkerspot

… Dorothy E. Pugh, 20 June, 2006 - 7:21am

Hmmm....

I would approach it the other way: most of the spots being free should outweigh the one attached one. Butterflies in general (and this group in particular) I think are so variable that you really have to go on a combination of field marks. I have been to slide presentations where Glassberg has corrected ID's made using his book, because the person making the ID relied on one single field mark.

It would be great to collect on Bugguide a series of photos from around the country of uppersides of checkerspots that have been positively identified by looking at the underside. Maybe some interesting field-marks/ patterns would emerge.

… Cliff Bernzweig, 19 June, 2006 - 5:55pm

I think so too.

It looks a lot like

… Steve Pelikan, 19 June, 2006 - 1:29pm

Oops...

Yes, Crescent of some sort, as in

.

Sorry, I seem to've gotten tangled up in too many different pages URL's to see what I was doing. Live and learn!

Any hints on separating Northern and Pearl?

… Steve Pelikan, 19 June, 2006 - 1:53pm

Ay carumba...

I was afraid you'd ask me that. Generally, the males have a considerably larger orange patch on their upper hind wings.
Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than I can comment? I've read so many different ways of separating them, including antennae color. Then there are some who split these into more species...

… Jay Cossey, 19 June, 2006 - 2:11pm

Isn't this a female Pearl Crescent?

I think this might be mislabelled. Looks to me like a female Pearl or Northern Crescent.

… Jay Cossey, 19 June, 2006 - 1:40pm