Seeking Butterflies
(click on photo to enlarge)
On Saturday, I attended my first SEABA (Southeast Arizona Butterfly Association) field trip. The location was one I had been wanting to visit for some time now — Garden Canyon located on Fort Huachuca in Sierra Vista (Cochise County). If you’ve ever heard about a bird named Elegant Trogon, well, this is your place to find them as well as other birds unique to this part of the world. On this day we were looking for some special butterflies — namely the Chiricahua White (Neophasia terlootii) and the Huachuca Giant-Skipper (Agathymus avansi). Oddly, there were no giant skippers about on this day except for a single Arizona Giant-Skipper (Agathymus aryxna). However, we made up for this omission by happening upon a Tropical Leafwing (Anaea aidea) and plenty of Chiricahua Whites. I was surprised to find that the Chirichaua White females are black and orange, perhaps mimicking the distasteful Monarch. Other cool butterflies new to my life list were Red-bordered Satyr (Gyrocheilus patrobas), Nabokov’s Satyr (Cyllopsis pyracmon), Desert Checkered-Skipper (Pyrgus philetas) and the abundant and stunning Arizona Sister (Adelpha eulalia). Despite a very windy day, I managed to get some decent photos of most of the butterflies. Guess it’s time to start a section on my website for Arizona butterflies.
Chiricahua White (Neophasia terlooti), female
Leave a Comment