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Butterfly Garden

Wild Indigo Duskywings

13 years ago

The Wild Indigo Duskywings have been second only to the White Cabbage butterflies in their breeding success in my garden. Yesterday, a pair shared the purple coneflower with the Sachem skippers and the butterflies. They appeared to be quite fresh and also showed no concern with my presence. I would like to share a photo of the male and of the female.

Bob

Male

{{gwi:503276}}

Female

{{gwi:503277}}

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Comments (7)

jrcagle
13 years ago
OK, so this is interesting. The first is absolutely a WID. The second one looks like a Horace's Duskywing Erynnis horatius. What I mean is, there's a prominent glassy spot in the "cell" -- the one inside the ring of spots at the median of the forewing.

That spot is what we use in the field to distinguish WID from Horace's in the field.

Jeff
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caterwallin
13 years ago
Jeff, Couldn't you also tell them apart by the number of white spots on each one?
Cathy
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Bob, How exciting that you posted this now! I was out in my hillside garden watering yesterday afternoon when what I thought was a brown moth (I'm new at this, so please be patient with me) flew in and landed on my Baptisia False Indigo. I watched him lay an egg and fly off. I went over and checked and there were 2 eggs. I was so excited and couldn't wait to get inside to research and find out what it was. When I checked the posts, I opened your's and saw a picture of my Duskywing! I will be watching the eggs closely! Thanks for posting these pictures. Betty
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Also, I find this thread so interesting because I saw some eggs on one of my Baptisia australis last year, and later saw some of the leaves folded over. Being so new to butterfly gardening, I wasn't sure about what to expect. I never actually saw a cat, just the eggs and then the folded leaves. Never saw the adult, either. I will be watching closely for eggs. If I decided to bring the eggs in to try to raise them, can I just bring in the branch the eggs are on, or use a whole plant so the cats can choose which leaf to use? About how long does it take from egg to adult? Thanks for sharing. So much to learn and then share with DH and the grandkids. Betty
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Jim, I may be wrong, but that looks like a Monarch chrysalis. Sometimes they do have the tiny black spots on the chrysalis. It looks like it is forming the gold ring on the chrysalis, too. Did you have some Monarch caterpillars on milkweed nearby? Not all of them reflect the black spots so vividly. I am attaching a photo that shows the spots, but it is not as close up as your image. What do you think? I may be way off base here, so hopefully someone else will chime in. Susan Here is a link that might be useful: Monarch chrysalis and gender ID
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Comments (4)
E. baptisiae is my first choice also. However, I'm open to E. persius because of the golden spots on the underside hindwing submargin. The Persius is a less common species, so I'm hesitant to mention it. I wonder whether there's a local expert who might shed some light? Whatever, it's a male. The butterfliesandmoths.org species descriptions for both species say, "Male has a costal fold containing yellow scent scales." That sounds like the yellow lines I see on your picture above. Check out the pics below just for their sheer coolness. Jeff Here is a link that might be useful: Persius Duskywing
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jrcagle
13 years ago
That's a good idea, and it sent me back to pics of WIDs and HDs to look. What I see is that WIDs seem to always have 5 spots -- 4 near the costa and one in the middle of the wing. This appears to be true for both females and males.

The HD on the other hand seems to vary between 6 and 7 spots.

One problem is that Juvenal's Duskywing also has the cell-spot that Horace's has, but looks grayer (and has two spots underneath). So counting spots only on the top would not separate those two.

The other thing is that spots can rub off in older specimens.

Jeff
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bob_71
Original Author
13 years ago
What does this one with six spots do to the equation...shot during the same period and on the same bush?

Bob

{{gwi:503278}}
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jrcagle
13 years ago
Another Horace's. The glassy cell-spot is definite.
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bananasinohio
13 years ago
When I see a lot's of WIDs, I tend to see Horace's as well. The extra glassy spot is a giveaway. Glad to see they are out. I was out today and haven't seen any as of yet.
-Elisabeth
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caterwallin
13 years ago
Jeff, I'm going to have to look closer at the duskwings that I see here. I've been assuming that they're all Indigoes, but maybe not. I know for sure that I have the WID because of the eggs being laid on the B. australis. There are a lot of oaks around here, so I could possibly see the other kinds too, although the trees are big and I doubt if I'd ever see any eggs being laid up so high. Hopefully the butterflies would come and nectar on some of the flowers in the garden.

Thank you for your observations on the three different kinds of duskywings. That will help me ID them if I ever get the other kinds.

Bob, I was concentrating so much on the spots of the duskywings that I neglected to tell you how nice I think your pictures are and I really enjoy looking at them.

Cathy
0

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