I was walking along a trail on the east side of the Sandias the other day when I passed a three-leaf sumac bush. As usual for this time of the year, a cloud of Litocala moths burst out of the bush, flying every which way. They’re extremely difficult to photograph because they move very quickly and rest only for brief moments. I managed to get a couple of shots anyway.
I noticed there were a couple of critters that had more or less stayed put on the three-leaf sumac, and that they were shaped kind of like … hairstreaks. I became really excited when I realized that a) they were, in fact, hairstreaks and b) I had no idea what type they were. I took as many photos as I could before they flew away.
Turns out they were thicket hairstreaks. See those bits of wing sticking out on the right side, with white tips? They’re called tails. Thicket hairstreaks have two tails on each side, for a total of four.
Even better, it was my second hairstreak sighting in less than a week.1 The first was just a day or two after I’d sent the email about Sandia hairstreaks. I was out in El Malpais and a small flying thing caught my eye. I was on its dark side, very close to a barbed wire fence, and had to carefully maneuver around the wire before I could get a good look at it.
It was a juniper hairstreak! You can see that its coloring is very similar to that of Sandia hairstreaks but, like thicket hairstreaks, it has four tails.2 The little orange and black spot near its tails is also very similar to the thicket hairstreak’s. And, true to hairstreak form, it was upside down the entire time I watched it.
Not surprisingly, the first thicket hairstreak I noticed was also upside down — but had righted itself by the time I got my camera out.
Aside from Sandia hairstreaks, that is.
Sandia hairstreaks don’t have tails.
You will be an international sensation in the hairstreak world!
How many varieties of hairstreak are there?