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Home » Guide » Arthropods (Arthropoda) » Hexapods (Hexapoda) » Insects (Insecta) » Butterflies and Moths (Lepidoptera) » Butterflies and Skippers (Papilionoidea) » Brush-footed Butterflies (Nymphalidae) » Crescents, Checkerspots, Anglewings, etc. (Nymphalinae) » Melitaeini » Checkerspots (Euphydryas) » Anicia Checkerspot - Hodges#4519 (Euphydryas anicia) » White Mountain Checkerspot (Euphydryas anicia magdalena)
Photo#251262
White Mountain Checkerspot - Euphydryas anicia - female
Copyright © 2009 David Moll

White Mountain Checkerspot - Euphydryas anicia - Female
Toolbox Draw, Escudilla Mountain, Apache County, Arizona, USA
July 31, 2008
Habitat is mountain meadow, about 10,000 Ft. (3048m). On Orange Sneezeweed, Hymenoxys hoopesii.
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Contributed by David Moll on 30 January, 2009 - 7:54pm
Last updated 31 January, 2009 - 11:51am

Euphydryas anicia subspecies magdalena
I expect that this girl is the same as the male. The amount of orange varies quite a bit in this subspecies, but it does tend to resemble chalcedona. If you follow the authors that put them all into ssp. chalcedona, then that makes it simple, but in many areas there are two different things that fly in the same place.
… David J. Ferguson, 31 January, 2009 - 9:46am login or register to post comments

 
Thank You
Thank you gentlemen.
… David Moll, 31 January, 2009 - 11:56am login or register to post comments

 
Your welcome; confusing is an understatement
At the risk of beating a dead horse - - Here is a link with a number of pictures of the same basic thing. Yours are older individuals, which makes the orange look faded and less prominent than if they were freshly emerged, plus some are much more orange to start with. The one shot from above is darker than average, making it look a lot more like E. chalcedona (and anicia ssp. bernadetta). Down lower in the mountains where they are called E. anicia ssp. hermosa, they get larger and more orange, and there is everything in between. The relationship is a lot like that between "capella" and "brucei" up and down the middle of Colorado.

ssp. madgalena on Butterflies of America

ssp. hermosa

To complicate it, there is a ssp. of E. chalcedona to the southwest not far away called klotsi, which is more black and white-looking and seems to behave as a different species (??) where they overlap with the more orange ones.

And, that just in central Arizona!
… David J. Ferguson, 3 February, 2009 - 1:27pm login or register to post comments

 
No, No This Is Good
Such variation in same location, same gender, same subspecies! Ouch!
… David Moll, 3 February, 2009 - 7:04pm login or register to post comments

Variable checkerspot
Euphydryas chalcedona

A confusing genus of butterflies i should say...
… Tim Loh, 31 January, 2009 - 1:04am login or register to post comments

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