[TN-Butterflies] Tennessee Cloudywing Trifecta

  • From: Julius Basham <juliusbasham@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: TN Butterflies <TN-Butterflies@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2010 22:39:01 -0400

Every now and again we get lucky enough to see all three species of Eastern Cloudywings in a single day in the Chattanooga area.  This wonderful occurrence has only happened in three local places that I am aware of, in the last ten years. One Cloudywing site is in Hamilton County, and the other two are in Polk.  The only similar conditions, that I am smart enough to recognize about all three sites, is the presence of sandy soil, and the presence of deciduous forests nearby.  I'm sure there are many more subtle requirements that allow all three species to be located in the same spot, but I  don't know what they are. However, they all seem to like the Red Clover.

This fine looking Southern Cloudywing is sporting some very bold angular white marks, mostly in a straight line. The 4 miniature white rectangles that make up the wrist bracelet are also in alignment. In this photo you can see that the face and neck is white, as well as the eye-ring. The white ring around the antenna just before the bend in the club is visible on both antenna in this photo.
 Since I use flash with  90% of my photos, I don't rely heavily on this fieldmark as it is easy to get false white reflections from the flash.



The Dorsal view shows the wide, white/tanish fringe that most Southerns feature when fresh.  Once again you can see that all the white trapezoids and hour-glassezoids are all basically in  a straight line.



Looking from the top you can see that the light fringe on the hindwing is a little lighter and a little wider than the previous pictures showed.



The Confused Cloudywing is usually the tough one to locate, but we had a couple of them on Sunday.
Once again the face and throat is white with a clean white eye-ring like the Southern.  The fringes are much more brown and tan, and all the white markezoids are much smaller but still basically in a straight line except for that one aberrant hourglass mark off to the side that both the Southern and Confused usually have.
The wrist bracelet is usually made up of four smaller, (smaller than the Southern's), more disjointed, white rectangles with the bottom-most rectangle displaced outwardly, as in the photo below.



This individual had very small mid-forewing marks.



From my experience, the amount of silver frosting seen on the ventral trailing edge of any of these three species, is a very unreliable field mark.  Not only is the amount of frosting highly variable in all three species, but it becomes quite difficult to assess how much daily wear, might have worn off the frosting scales.  This is probably the second brood for this year.




The last and most plainly marked of our three Cloudywings is the Northern and likely the most common in our State.



The face is very dirty brown and gray with a hint of a light cusp around the back of the eye.  The white marks on the forewings are usually very diminished to absent.  The fringes are usually brown/tan, with dark checkers. 
The Northern is usually known as the Cloudywing with the most frosting, but as you can see from this picture, it is almost all worn off.  In the wrist bracelet, the lowest fourth mark is sometimes in line with the others, and sometimes offset to the rear like the Confused.  This individual below shows the fourth clearly offset.



The inner wing shows minimal marks and lots of wear.  It is interesting to note that the camera flash created white marks at the bend in the antennal clubs(below), which are not there in the photo above, of the same individual.
Only the Southerns should have those white antenna marks so you can see how easy it is to misinterpret this mark. The Northerns seem to have overall darker antennas.



I'm no expert, but if I were going to try and prioritize the field marks separating these three, I would probably start with the face.

1. White face, throat and eye-ring.  (Southern and Confused)  Dark face, throat and no eye-ring (Northern)
2. Size of white mid-forewing marks.  Large and bold (Southern)    Small to absent ( Confused and Northern) somewhat variable however
3. Width and color of fringe.  Wide and light (Southern)  Brown, tan or buffy (Confused and Northern)
4. Wrist bracelet marks.   All four in alignment (Southern and rarely Northern)  Fourth mark offset ( Southern, Confused, or Northern) variable, but to be a Confused, you need the offset
5. White mark at bend in antennal club. (Southern)  somewhat reliable    Absent in (Confused and Northern) you know the flash issues
6. Sandy soil in the area. Seems more important for the Confused
7. Amount of frosting. Unreliable

Even with these basic guidelines, individuals are still highly variable, and each successive brood of the season has different characteristics.
Good luck to us all, trying to ID these little brown jewels.

These photos were all taken in Polk County on July 11, 2010.

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