Two Texas Photos by Jan Dauphin
November 30, 2008
Texas
Two great rarities seen during my third stay in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, both highly prized by the remarkably cooperative community of Valley butterfly watchers. Clench’s Greenstreak (Cyanophrys miserabilis) is the rarest of three species of these brilliant little green hairstreaks to appear in the LRGV. We saw another one, the Tropical Greenstreak (Cyanophrys herodotus), the next morning, just a few yards away in a different bed of Eupatorium flowers. Isabella’s Longwing (Euides isabella) appears infrequently on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande. Its larvae, like those of other species of heliconians (longwings), feed on leaves of passion flower vines, and the adults consume pollen as well as nectar, thereby living longer than most adult butterflies. Doubly surprising, I saw one the next day also.
Robert Michael Pyle won the 2007 National Outdoor Book Award....