Mystery Butterfly

Here's a duskywing butterfly I met this summer. I wasn''t confident of what it was, and the iNaturalist community hasn't weighed in on it either. (I suspect if I had more pictures from different angles, somebody would have figured it out by now.)

The main candidates that iNaturalist's photo recognition software suggested were:

All four of these are mostly dark spread-winged skippers. Some of the spread-winged skippers (including the Wild Indigo) are so similar to some of its relatives that they form the persius complex, where habitat and host plants are the easiest way to distinguish them.

I'll try and update you if an identification eventually emerges, but for now this butterfly is an unsolved mystery!

July 28, 2021 at Sourland Mountain Preserve
Photo 148654365, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


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