northeast-flora-and-fauna

Here's an Appalacian Brown I met in the waning days of summer.  I've shown an open-winged one before , though this view makes it a little easier to ID them. They're very similar to the Eyed Brown , but notice the dark lines on the underside of the wing. In an Eyed Brown, those lines should be much more zig-zaggy. I don't think we have many Eyed Browns around here, but it's probably a good idea to ID these carefully. (From a view of the top of the wing it would be awfully difficult to distinguish these guys.) Another butterfly that has a similar wing pattern that you can definitely find around here is the Northern Pearly-eye . You're supposed to tell them apart because the Northern Pearly-eye has light, nearly-white fringe around its eyespots. All 3 of these species are, as you might suspect, related .  September 8, 2022 at Fairview Farm Photo 248397096, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

I believe this is an Appalachian Brown butterfly, though a slightly more northern species, the Eyed Brown , is also a possibility. This identification would have been more reliable if the butterfly had its wings up; they both have a prominent line seen there, but on the Eyed Brown that line is quite a bit more jagged. In this particular picture, the forewing has a couple of very small eyespots on the forewing; in an Eyed Brown all those forewing eyespots should be approximately the same size. Both these species are in the same genus ( Satyrodes ), eat basically the same food ( sedges ) as caterpillars, look similar, and have some range overlap. They're clearly related, which always makes me wonder if they ever hybridize. One of my guides says they never visit flowers for nectar, mostly drinking sap from trees and maybe drinking fluids from rotting fruit. I tend to wonder whether we've followed these butterflies around long enough and under enough diverse conditions to conclusi...