No takers on this sulphur? Fine, I'll just have to make a fool of myself!!
But if you weren't around earlier... I took a picture of this sulphur while in southeast Arizona last August. I initially tried ID'ing it but eventually gave up.
A couple features that stand out to me are the dark edges to the FW above (that we can see through the underside of the FW), and the rather blunt tail on the HW.
If I'm not mistaken, the only "tailed" members of this family present in SE Arizona would be:
Yellow Angled-Sulphur
Mexican Yellow
Boisduval's Yellow
Sleepy Orange
Tailed Orange
It's clearly not the large, greenish Yellow Angled-Sulphur, of that I'm sure!
Another thing to point out is the shape of the black that's on the FW above. I don't see the classic "dogface" that would be present on all Mexican Yellows and male Boisduval's Yellow.
Sleepy Orange should surely have a deeper orange flush to the underside and more markings than this butterfly, right? Also, all the pictures I've seen of Sleepy Oranges show a more blunt, rounded tail than our butterfly shows.
Likewise, I feel that Tailed Orange would be both a) oranger at this season and b) have a more blunt tail.
This leaves me with where I left off last time; confused! Perhaps this is a worn female Boisduval's? I feel that the picture in the Kaufman guide for Boisduval's shows a tail very similar to mine.
Any clues out there?
Looks like Boisduval's is probably the best match. Some of the paler females here are pretty close.
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