North American Butterfly Association
Posted on 10/12/2007 9:13:25 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
FALCON HEIGHTS, Texas - A tiny green butterfly not seen in the United States in more than 70 years likes the new butterfly garden at Falcon State Park, experts said.
Berry Nall of Falcon Heights took a photograph of his find on Monday, posted it on his Web site and asked members of an online mailing list to help him identify it.
"I tried to get as many pictures as I could, but it took off," Nall said.
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department informed him that he had taken a picture of a telea hairstreak butterfly.
"I knew something was going on when I couldn't find it (in any books)," he said.
Mike Quinn, an invertebrate biologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife's wildlife diversity program, said he immediately started reviewing his books to verify the insect was a telea hairstreak after he saw the posting.
"As soon as I saw the photo, my jaw dropped. It was fresh as a daisy and crisp," he said.
Avery Freeman first captured a telea hairstreak in Laredo in 1935, Quinn said. The specimen is at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
Quinn said two other types of green hairstreak butterflies, the xami and the silver-banded, can be spotted in the Rio Grande Valley and feed off the same plants as the telea hairstreak.
A telea hairstreak has tiny filaments on the lower back sides of the wings. It also has false antennae, also on the backs of the wings, that serve to dupe predators, he said.
David Dauphin of Mission said he and his wife, Jan, saw the green butterfly at the state park on Tuesday and took pictures of it. They say they saw other types of hairstreaks later in the week.
Fran Bartle, Falcon State Park's volunteer park naturalist, said the sighting has created a stir and people are coming to the park to look for it.
Jeffrey Glassberg, president of the North American Butterfly Association, said people could have overlooked the telea hairstreak butterflies before because they are so tiny.
"Only recently have there been knowledgable people looking for butterflies," he said. "When you have nobody looking, you don't see anything."
Quinn and the butterfly watchers believe the butterflies hatched in the Valley rather than migrated here.
"There might already be an established community at Falcon State Park," he said.
Some people have too much time on their hands.
“When you have nobody looking, you don’t see anything.”
I new a gal that worked for the Fish and Game in New Jersey. She said the same almost the same thing (”If you don’t know where to look, you won’t see anything”) about all of the “endangered” species the government had listed.
Thanks,, racy looking little things
ping
Cool.
Reminds me of a butterfly story that happened on the SF peninsula. San Bruno Mountain is a hill that overlooks the city of South San Francisco and Daly City. In the 1970’s, a developer started building on it and, right at the 11th hour, someone found a Mission Blue Butterfly on the range. It was suspicious because no one had seen it in that area AND the dead specimen had forecep marks on its wings. Anyhoot, a generation later, they started building again on this stretch of land. But it had become some of the most valuable real estate in the world. So, in a twisted sort of way, the environmentalists did the owners of this land a favor.
http://www.mountainwatch.org/mountain/fauna/missionbluebutterfly.htm
Huh, I squashed one of these with a rolled up newspaper last week. You mean I wasn’t supposed to ???
uh-oh...I’m guessing the tree huggers will sue to close Texas....
Thanks, quite the twist there. interesting color and pattern.
Well, I guess I’m going to be the one to have to say it.
IT’S BUSH’S FAULT!
Am not a tree hugger but if we could be guaranteed that this would work, I’d be the first one to the lawyer!
SAVE US ALGORE FROM THE TINY GREEN BUTTERFLY OF DOOOOOM!!!!
Hey, I can play that game too.
See? kb2614 gets it. I’m not the only one.
A very funny short clip that parodies Lunesta commericals—you know, the ones with the calming little butterfly.
So you are saying it’s an ‘undocumented migrant’ from Mexico?
Oh I can’t post what Id like to say about Gore grrrr. But I do want a new butterfly tattoo like the picture of the one shown. Its so nice to see it has come back & I bet that moron Gore doesn’t even know it. He is too busy accepting bs awards,inventing bs ways to scam us out of money & jetting around being a moron... I don’t think the Nobel Peace award means diddly squat..Not that I ever really cared about it anyway. ~Pandy~
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