northeast-flora-and-fauna

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: Horace's Duskywing  (iNaturalist's first suggestion, which is usually the best suggestion) Wild Indigo Duskywing  (a butterfly that's become widespread because of its ability to use the invasive legume Crownvetch as a host plant) Juvenal's Duskywing Common Sootywing (despite the name, an increasingly uncommon relative of the duskywings) 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...