Subject: Cercyonis pegala or not?

From: [email-masked] (Angela14)
Date: 11 Aug 1995 19:03:33 -0400

I caught a satyr today.  It has an exactly 2 inch wingspan and a is cross
between chocolate brown and a light tan.  On each forewing are two small
dots of light blue encircled in a large circle of black, and each of those
is surrounded by a thin band of yellow.  Close to the outer margin is a
thin, darker band which travels the length of the wing.  The hindwings are
of the same cross between chocolate brown and light tan.  It, too, holds
the thin darker band along the outer margin, but it also has an additional
two even thinner ones closer to the edge.  The antennae are also of the
color of the wings, but they have a very slight orange tint on the last
few segments.

I live in Michigan and found it flying near a barn where vines and weeds
have grown high around it.  There is a field behind that, and a half mile
back there is a good-sized woods.  Yesterday I saw a butterfly of the same
species (possibly the same one) flying near this spot, but out farther in
the field.  I believe it to be a Cercyonis pegala, but I can't be sure
because all my books contradict themselves about wingspan, wing markings
in particular areas, etc.  One book said that the male has two small
eyespots on the hindwing, but on the female they are absent, but then
another tells me in one form eyespots can line the entire hindwing.  Is
this butterfly what I believe it to be?  

Thanks for any light shed on the subject,

-- Angela

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From: [email-masked] (Maliboo)
Date: 27 Aug 1995 22:26:27 -0400

Yes, it is a Cercyonis pegala, subsecies nephele.  Your i.d. was correct.
Most books do not do justice to the variation of C. pegala, which vary
within populations, as well as from area to area.  
Paul J. Russell