Red-banded Hairstreak

Here's a Red-banded Hairstreak I met in late May.

The hairstreaks are a group of butterflies with a crisp/clean appearance, though they're not flamboyantly colored. We have a number of hairstreaks in NJ, though none of the others has such a prominent red/orange band like this little guy.

Although NJ isn't a particularly big state, this butterfly demonstrates that small differences can matter a lot. It's believed that these butterflies overwinter as caterpillars in southern NJ counties but don't in northern NJ counties. (I'm not sure if the northern ones perform a mini-migration to southern NJ or are simply killed off in the winter.)

May 28, 2021 at Duke Farms
Photo 133214304, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


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