Favoritos de jcochran706

Apparently a first iNat observation for Texas. Two images of the same moth, photographed on two different substrates about 35 minutes apart. The species is listed on the 2018 edition of Knudson & Bordelon's Checklist of Texas Lepidoptera, but I'm finding no Texas reports on MPG, BG, iNat, or SCAN. The ID is suggested by the rather straight speckled AM line and the way the inner end of the PM line sweeps basally to nearly meet the AM line.
http://mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu/species.php?hodges=7119
https://bugguide.net/node/view/769606
http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Taxbrowser_Taxonpage?taxid=305753

This species has a curious distribution in the Austin area. It is normally quite uncommon in most habitats and found only very locally around the few native stands of ceniza (Texas purple sage) which grow in the area, but it is gradually colonizing more urban areas where cultivated varieties of ceniza have been planted abundantly. This was the first documented record of the species at Balcones Canyonlands NWR.

Finally!!! I've been searching for this rare and poorly-known species for over two years.

Horrible photo, I only saw this individual for a few seconds, and only got this one shot. But the underwing pattern is clear enough.
Note that the 'top-most' spot is small and isolated, where Green Skipper would have another large spot overlapping that one. Also note that the row of lower-most spots are fairly small. In the field, I noted that these spots were in-line with one another, not curved as in Green Skipper.

Compare with female Sachem, and with the Green Skipper I observed on the same day: http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/2098554

High-quality photos of the central TX form of Apache Skipper are available here: http://www.butterfliesofamerica.com/L/hesperia_woodgatei_ctexassegregate_live.htm
Note that these central TX individuals have much smaller spots than what the field guides might illustrate. There was past discussion of splitting this into a different species, but it was never formally described and published as such.

Prairie dog ran across the road in front of me. I pulled over and took some images. It stood up and barked at me. Most likely an escaped pet in progress, although I was surprised to see the range map is much farther south than I thought. Not sure?