Various small things

So this is me taking advantage of having this blog; I'm going to post things OTHER than butterflies in this post.  Why?  Well, I figured someone out there might have insight into these other creatures.

This dragonfly was down in southern Texas.  I believe it to be either a CARMINE SKIMMER (Orthemis discolor) or a ROSEATE SKIMMER (Orthemis ferruginea).  At this point, I'm leaning more towards ROSEATE SKIMMER due to the not-so-red abdomen and the more-purplish thorax:

I'm reluctant to try to ID some of the darners but according to the books I have, there are only a couple possible at Big Bend National Park in western Texas:

Springtime Darner
Shadow Darner (maybe)
Persephone's Darner (maybe)
Arroyo Darner
Blue-eyed Darner
Giant Darner
Common Green Darner

All I can say with this following darner is that I don't think it's a Giant or Common Green.  Perhaps it's a Blue-eyed yellow female?  Or a out-of-range Shadow?

I have almost no experience with these things... but is this a type of clubtail/snaketail?  It was in the lower Rio Grande Valley; here are some possibilities given the range:

Five-striped Leaftail

Ringed Forceptail

Broad-striped Forceptail

Narrow-striped Forceptail

Jade Clubtail

Sulphur-tipped Clubtail

Plains Clubtail

Tamaulipan Clubtail

Russet-tipped Clubtail

Flag-tailed Spinyleg

Eastern Ringtail

Is the ID obvious to someone else out there?

This looks like something similar so I'll include it next.  This was also in extreme southern Texas:

I'm guessing this is an anti-climatic EASTERN PONDHAWK? 

And a female EASTERN PONDHAWK?

I'm pretty sure I haven't seen this thing before but that's not surprising.  I'm going to go out on a decaying limb and call it a THORNBUSH DASHER (Micrathyria hagenii):

Those who know me know that I despise damselflies mostly because I can't identify a bloody thing.  Well then, imagine my delight when I saw this damselfly.  Surely I could ID it, right?  Well, I think so.  My thought is that this is an AMERICAN RUBYSPOT (Hetaerina americana):

Moving even further from insects and jumping to a different phylum, here are a couple reptiles from south Texas.

This first one was in Big Bend NP in western Texas.  I thought IDing these would be fairly straightforward, but here I am again completely lost.  Might this be be a Crevice Spiny Lizard or a Southern Prairie Lizard?

I was pretty sure that this was an Earless Lizard of some sort but now I'm not so sure.  It was in extreme southern Texas so in range for Keeled Earless Lizard but I don't see the black lines near the armpit:

I might just be able to ID this one we had in extreme southern Texas.  My guess is GREEN ANOLE.  We first found it and it was this pale green/yellow:

...and a few minutes later, it was bright green!

This guy was in extreme southern Texas as well.  My guess is a female TEXAS SPOTTED WHIPTAIL or some kind of racerunner/skink?

Last but not least, and moving back into insects, here is what-I-presume-to-be a SPRING AZURE from southwest Michigan:

This is a SIX-SPOTTED TIGER BEETLE also from southwest Michigan (thanks AB):

I'll leave you with this strange thing that landed on Ashley's hand in southern Texas.  Pretty tiny; any ideas:

OK/TX

I recently got back from a trip to Oklahoma and Texas.  I was eager to see what butterflies I could stir up and although this time of year isn't peak for diversity, I still managed several new things.  Here are some photos roughly organized by groups....

SWALLOWTAILS:

As usual with south Texas, GIANT SWALLOWTAILS were abundant.  Some other species I saw on my trip included BLACK SWALLOWTAIL and SPICEBUSH SWALLOWTAIL.  These were pretty familiar species to me so I didn't take many pictures of them.

WHITES & SULPHURS:

It was nice to have a break from Cabbage Whites (they don't occur in south Texas).  Instead, I saw CHECKERED WHITE only once:

The only other white I saw was the common GREAT SOUTHERN WHITE:

Moving on to sulphurs, LITTLE YELLOWS were common:

I tried to find a Mimosa Yellow but never could.  The closest I came was this butterfly that shows at least one black spot at the base of the hindwing below (Little Yellow should have two).  However, Mimosa Yellow is said to not have any black spots at the base of the hindwing.  Thoughts?

It took me awhile to figure out what these were, but I believe these plain yellow butterflies were LYSIDE SULPHURS:

Another new sulphur for me was this huge LARGE ORANGE SULPHUR:

Thankfully I caught up to one later in the trip to confirm it:

HAIRSTREAKS:

There wasn't a huge diversity of hairstreaks during my visit.  The vast majority of hairstreaks were the abundant GRAY HAIRSTREAKS:

I did manage a lifer hairstreak though; MALLOW SCRUB-HAIRSTREAKS were seen a couple of different times:

BLUES:

The vast majority of blues I saw were REAKIRT'S BLUE, often seen in dozens:

The second most-common blue I saw was the MARINE BLUE:

After checking most of these blues, I finally found my first CASSIUS BLUE:

METALMARKS:

I was eager to find some metalmarks but I only saw two individuals on the trip.  This first metalmark was found in extreme south Texas:

And here is another individual from south Texas but a very poor photo:

Given the location, I'm inclined to assume that the only two possibile species would be FATAL METALMARK and ROUNDED METALMARK.  Are there any thoughts out there to which these might be?

LONGWINGS & FRITILLARIES:

The only fritillary I saw on my trip was the abundant GULF FRITILLARY.  I didn't spend much time chasing these around since I had seen them on other various trips.

CRESCENTS & CHECKERSPOTS:

There were many different crescents and checkerspots around constantly; I'm pretty sure I didn't even see the tip of the iceberg.  

The first is (what I think) a PEARL CRESCENT:

I thought that the next butterflies were PHAON CRESCENTS:

Lastly, I had this butterfly which I reluctantly think is a PEARL CRESCENT.  For some reason, much of the black on the wings looks faded and has almost turned somewhat orange.  Any ideas on alternate identifications?  This was taken in extreme southern Texas:

TYPICAL BRUSHFOOTS:

I didn't see as many MEXICAN BLUEWINGS as I have on previous trips but I did snap a picture of a closed-winged MEXICAN BLUEWING:

An abundant species on this trip was the QUEEN:

Some other brushfoots we saw included:

Painted Lady

White Peacock

Tawny Emperor

American Snout

Monarch

SATYRS:

I stumbled on two different satyr species on this trip.  The first was this striking RED SATYR in the Wichita Mountains in Oklahoma:

The other satyr species we saw was the fairly-common CAROLINA SATYR:

SPREAD-WING SKIPPERS:

The butterfly I was probably most excited to see was unlike any other I had seen before, the SICKLE-WINGED SKIPPER:

And yes, they're considered abundant in south Texas.  Oh well!

I was happy to stumble on a couple of longtails too; the first is a plain BROWN LONGTAIL:

The white stripes on this longtail gives the identification away as a TELEUS LONGTAIL:

There were tons of checkered-skippers around too.  I tried to find a Tropical Checkered-Skipper but never came up with one.  Instead, I had several COMMON CHECKERED-SKIPPERS, like this one:

GRASS SKIPPERS:

I'll start with the hardest.... I don't have a clue what this skipper is!  I'm not sure what is going on with the wings...

With this skipper, you get to ask yourself the question "FAWN-SPOTTED or CLOUDED"?  Given that CLOUDED SKIPPER is considered abundant whereas FAWN-SPOTTED SKIPPER is considered uncommon, perhaps it's just a CLOUDED SKIPPER?

The other most exciting butterfly (for me, anyway) was this TURK'S-CAP WHITE-SKIPPER.  I have never seen a skipper with such a striking underwing:

Here is another oddball I haven't had a chance to identify.  My guess is a very worn LAVIANA WHITE-SKIPPER:

Might the next three skippers be EUFALA SKIPPERS?

I'm not entirely sure about this one, perhaps a SOUTHERN SKIPPERLING?

The checkered fringe of this skipper gave it away as a roadside-skipper, CELIA'S ROADSIDE-SKIPPER to be exact:

 Hey, this thing looks familiar.  I think it's a FIERY SKIPPER:

So after it was all said-and-done, we had about 40 species of butterflies on this trip.  We'll see what else I can stir up this spring!  Stay tuned...