Well, it sure looks more like the sheridanii to me? Though I am just a novice at this; it was found, like all its other relatives, on or near, the coast, and not anywhere inland at all. Anyone else?

According to the photos of affinis, they all seem to have gray markings, in a wide swath, across the secondary wings:

http://bugguide.net/node/view/25011

This shot above, does not. Would that be a difference in sex?

I recently researched this issue a bit in connection with the following post:



To add to the remarks on that post, below are quotes from the wonderful 2007 "Field Guide to the Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay..."(1) by renowned lepidopterist Art Shapiro of UC Davis:

"Bramble Hairstreak
(Callophrys "dumetorum" complex)
This is one of our worst taxonomic nightmares. Scarely any two authorities agree on the limits of species, or to what named entity various populations should be assigned, or even to the correct biological entity to which some of the names refer. Fortunately—whatever one chooses to call them—there appear to be two biological entities in our area that can be appreciated and studied if names are either avoided or used with a healthy dose of both skepticism and tact. At this writing, some authorities are calling these things C. affinis!"

The gist I get from the above paragraph...and especially the last sentence...is that calling this C. affinis would just be adding more confusion to the already overly-convoluted taxonomic situation existing in 2007. Shapiro continued by describing the "two biological entities" he referred to above as:

""Inland" Bramble Hairstreak
(Callophrys dumetorum of older books; C. perplexa perplexa of Brock & Kaufman)"

and...

""Coastal" Bramble Hairstreak
(Callophrys viridis of older books; C. perplexa viridis of Brock & Kaufman; true C. dumetorum per Emmel, Emmel, & Matoon)
Confined to the coastal fog belt in scrub and dune communities, this animal—one of our most beautiful and photogenic butterflies—may or may not be conspecific with the "Inland" entity, but the two seemingly never co-occur."

But, as of 2012, per the remarks and reference quoted in my post mentioned above, it appears the proper name here is either C. viridis, or... if one believes that C. viridis and C. sheridanii are the same species...C. sheridanii viridis.