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Photo#325488
fritillary with fly - Speyeria mormonia - female

fritillary with fly - Speyeria mormonia - Female
Iron County, Utah, USA
July 14, 2009

Moved

Moved

Try Mormon Fritillary
I suspect it's a dark female Speyeria mormonia eurynome, not S. hesperis.

 
ID?
I'm still inclined to call it S. hesperis. The disc color is very similar to other hesperis I've found in Southern Utah and is much darker than any mormonia I've seen in Utah.

 
Some more reasoning
The pattern, shape of wings, and apparently very small size (as evidenced by the fly and Lupine flowers) all match up perfectly with S. mormonia, but none match with S. hesperis. Also, the photo is taken at such an angle to the sun and flower that most of the dark pigment on the hind wing is in shadow, so it probably looks darker than it is. However, even accounting for this, I agree that it is still on the dark side for S. mormonia, but not outside of the range of variation that can be seen among Utah populations. Now that your comment has me checking it out even more closely, I am pretty certain that it is a female S. mormonia.

Moved
Moved from ID Request.

ID
Speyeria hesperis chitone

 
As a novice...
... who is trying to learn more about the process, would you mind if I asked how you were able to eliminate other species to reach your ID? I am genuinely not questioning it. I just found that so many of the frilltary species had such similar markings in the photos that I was trying to compare.

 
Speyeria spp.
Chiming in to respond to your question -

With regards to similar/related species, id is often times based on one or more of the following:

Locality of specimen

Familiarity with the taxon

Image quality

Compare & Contrast / Process of elimination

Hope that helps.
bill

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