butterfly ID

[fishhead]

While mowing a couple of weeks ago I saw a small black butterfly with about a dozen round white spots. It was only about 1" and rested with it's wings open. The wings and body were black and the white spots were about 1/16" in diameter.

I've never seen one before. Unfortunately by the time I could get to my camera I lost track of it.

Any ideas?

[Paumon]

Were the white spots scattered all over the wings or were they in rows around the outer edges of the wings? Was there any other color that you noticed, for example on the body and legs?

There are a lot of types of black and white spotted butterflies and moths. Perhaps you could try a search on these sites, just type in the words in the search box and enter. Give it a bit of time for the search engine to work as there is a lot of information on the sites for it to weed through:

http://www.whatsthatbug.com/index.html

http://www.whatsthatbug.com/category...-and-skippers/

Another insect site, called BugGuide:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/15740

[fishhead]

The spots were round and evenly spaced closer to the edge of the wing but not on the edge. The butterfly was mostly black. The only colors I noticed were black and white.

[Bfly Farmer]

A great site I would suggest for butterflies and moths is "Butterflies and Moths of North American" http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/

You can go to the map and search for butterflies in your area which is one of my favorite features.

[fishhead]

Thanks.

I just looked through all the ones for my county (Crow Wing) and it wasn't there. I'm thinking it may be a new immigrant or maybe it just hasn't been documented here yet.

We've just recently seen gray fox, possums and map turtles for the first time so I would expect we have more species migrating up from the south.

If I see it again I'll stop what I'm doing and grab the camera.

[tinknal]

Was it swallow tailed, or "delta" (not sure of the proper term)winged?

[Emmy D]

Swallow Tailed Butterflys, Eastern or otherwise are much bigger than 1" across...closer to 3" or a tiny bit more when resting with their wings open! We have a lot of them around here the black with yellow and the black with blue.

Emmy

[tinknal]

Originally Posted by Emmy D

Swallow Tailed Butterflys, Eastern or otherwise are much bigger than 1" across...closer to 3" or a tiny bit more when resting with their wings open! We have a lot of them around here the black with yellow and the black with blue.

Emmy

Ah, thanks, I missed that.

(skim, post, re read, smack forehead......)

[Paquebot]

Search for skippers or Hesperiidae family. They are in that size range but there's around 300 different in North America.

Martin

[fishhead]

There was nothing out of the ordinary on the edges of the wings. I'll have to expand my search beyond this county.