JUNE BUTTERFLIES
ON & AROUND SLATE MOUNTAIN
Below are the species I managed to identify in the Douglas-fir/ Sugar Pine forest
between 3200 and 4100 feet (975-1250 meters) in elevation on Slate Mountain in eastern El
Dorado County.. I hope you can experience some of the pleasure I did when you view the
images and see the rainbow of colors and elegant patterns:
- Pale Tiger Swallowtail, PTEROURUS EURYMEDON
- pale cream with bold, broad, black stripes
- just two seen, one in a blackberry thicket and another along a rocky roadcut among Deer
Brush
- Audubon says the caterpillar's main host plants are members of the Buckthorn Family,
such as the Deer Brush
http://www.pikespeakphoto.com/paletiger.html
- ? Acmon Blue, ICARICIA ACMON
- bright lilac-blue, pinkish-orange band on hindwing
- several seen, Audubon says "nearly the most ubiquitous western blue"
- caterpillar eats buckwheat, locoweed, Bird's-foot trefoil and lupine; here we have lots
of lupine
- in the field almost indistinguishable from the Lupine Blue, which we also have here
http://www.sasionline.org/Coronado/pages/Lycaenidae/I_acmon.html
- ? Calippe Fritillary, SPEYERIA CALLIPPE
- orange-brown with complex pattern of black spots
- just one seen; there's a cluster of look-alike species and two or three are found here,
but the Calippe is the most likely for here
- caterpillar eats violets, and a yellow-flowered violet is common here; the adult often
lays her eggs haphazardly under shrubs where violets don't appear until the next spring
http://www.vireos.com/callippefritmono.html
- California Tortoiseshell, NYMPHALIS CALIFORNICA
- rich russet with black blotches - just one seen
- caterpillars eat members of the buckthorn Family
- Audubon says "may be rare or absent from large parts of its range for several
years. These dearths are followed by periods of enormous abundance, including emigrations
over immense areas."
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/distr/lepid/bflyusa/pic/n_califo.jpg
- Painted Lady, VANESSA CARDUI
- salmon-orange with black blotches & white spots
- hundreds seen
- caterpillars eat thistles and other composites
- "perhaps the most widespread butterfly in the world," Audubon says - yearly
spring migrant from the Desert Southwest to much of the rest of North America, where it
dies with the first hard frost www.naba.org/chapters/nabambc/construct-species-page.asp?sp=Vanessa-cardui
- Buckeye, JUNONIA COENIA
- brown with 2 orange bars & 2 bright eyespots
- hundreds seen
- caterpillars eat plantain and other things; lots of plantain along the road
- a migrant, in fall sometimes migrations southward rival those of the Monarch
http://www.pikespeakphoto.com/junonia.html
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