That's a beautiful picture, Jeff, of one of my favorite small butterflies.
I wouldn't even try to separate northern from pearl crescents - they're WAY too close! In my opinion, they're probably just different forms of the same butterfly. I even think juvenal's, horace's, and zarucco duskywings may be the same butterflies - just my opinion of course.
Sherry

Yeah, some of the Crescents are just too difficult to isolate for ID. The easiest ones for me are the Texas Crescent and the Bordered Patch (same family), which are easily identified.

Sandy raised Pearl Crescents last year. Sometimes the easiest way is to find out what host plant utilized, e.g. Pearl Crescents use Asters I believe, and perhaps the other crescents use a different host plant - I'm not sure.

Susan

Agreed, Sherry -- at some point, I wonder what the point is in distinguishing separate species when the morphology of one can be so variable as to include the forms of the other.

I guess the trick with P. tharos and P. cocyta is that they don't interbreed.

Jeff

Thanks Jeff;
Here in Dayton, OH, we catch what I assumed where pearl crescents all the time. I will look closer the next time.

What were you doing at The Wilds? I haven't visited there yet. I want to talk to them sometime as we are looking to create some fritillary habitat in our area.

Elisabeth

It's fabulous. We were traveling between Columbus and MD, and it was just a side-trip. But my wife and I agreed that it would be worth a full day next time.

Jeff

Jeff,

Beautiful picture and good information. I struggle to keep the Pearl Crescents and the Silvery Checkerspots IDed correctly and quickly, though the more time I spend in the field, the easier it gets. At least here, we don't have Northern Crescents (that's what I'm told) so I don't have to worry about that!

MissSherry, the Duskwings and Cloudywings are so hard to distinguish. I had one picture that was IDed by another person as a Confused Cloudywing and finally we all agreed it was a Northern. I have a couple of pictures that I think are possibly Mottled Duskywings, but that's another difficult one! I take pictures of every single skipper I encounter so I can practice IDing them. I figure it's the only way I'll learn. But, don't ask me to do a genitalia check under the microscope! If it takes that for an ID, I guess I will have to go without knowing. Nick Grishin (NABA) in Texas has pictures he has done showing the different attributes of skippers that require microscopic identification. He got into our local discussion about the Confused Cloudywings. He's pretty good at getting to the ID! His pictures and details are very clear and precise, and helpful for IDing all types of little guys.

The more I learn about BFs, the less I think I know! And, the more I see BFs, I realize that there is so much variation within a species, and similarities between species. So how's a person to keep from being confused?

Sandy

"So similar are these two species in appearance and habits, that even the authorities find it difficult to identify individual specimens."

How very true, and it can be true of other similar species in other families as well. Variation, even between individuals in the same colony can occur commonly even in species that are known not to have intergrades. So up to a point I can agree with what Mike wrote. But opinions vary and I don't agree with just labeling all individuals seen as being the same bug when they were not correctly determined. For counts/survey's to be accurate, the determination of those polled also has to be accurate, simple as that. Even giving latitude because two species are not known to fly at the same time in the same location is problematic because of early/late flights or strays, even by a single individual, which are all common occurances in the lep world.

I've done my share of organized lep counts, and there has always been suspect individuals seen that a net couldn't be put on to get an accurrate determination of. They are simply listed as unknown on the count, with maybe a footnote suggesting what they were believed to be. But they are NOT included in the counts because they were not determined exactly. Doing so would negate the count.

Taxonomy does change as new proofs are determined and proven, but every bug out there has a "current" taxonomiical position based on what is known and believed by most knowledgeable Leopidopterists at the moment. Sure some of them tend to lump and some of them to split, but that is most commonly at subspecies level and not genus or species level. Genus and species level does change, if proven warranted, but subspecies level is more often what is subjective, even to the point of what species complex they belong in.

Bugs that already do have a taxonomic postion assigned to them are current species. If you think more than one species is actually the same bug, you will have a very steep and tall hill to climb to prove it. Assignments come from years of research to be accepted by the professional community at large, more often than not by several researchers who may or may not be working together. It's common enough for species level to be separated by characteristics that can't be determined except in hand, or by disection or under a scope too. If they have different taxonomy there is a reason.

To each their own, but that's my opinion.