Northern Crescent

Description:

Identification Male antennal clubs orange; female darker than male; upperside orange-brown with dark borders, hindwing with broad open orange area; underside of hindwing orange (fading to tan) with brown patch surrounding pale marginal crescent. A lot of Pearls get called Northerns, and there is a lot of confusion between the two. It could be debated whether even some examples shown on Butterfly web sites and in books as "Northern's" really are. The trait of a line through the middle of the hind wing in Pearls, and not in Northerns (at least in males) doesn't always work, and should be taken with a grain of salt, and also the orange antennal clubs are only somewhat reliable (best in males). Generally Northerns are much larger and dominated by orange above, with the dark borders tending to be more narrow. The veins in the mid portion of the wing are more likely to be orange than in Pearl Crescents (more likely mostly black there). Pearls, especially the males, tend to have a lot more black above, and often very wide dark borders. Below the Northerns tend to be much more orange on the hind wings. None of these is a totally relaible trait by itself, and the "overall picture" is important, one needs to avoid focusing on just one or two details when trying to separate these two species. Range from Newfoundland and Nunavut to Yukon Territory, south in the western mountains to Utah, southeast Arizona, and southern New Mexico; south in the Appalachians to Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia Habitat wide variety of habitat preferences: moist open areas in rocky places, wooded streams, marsh edges, shale barrens, abandoned city lots, mountain meadows - practically anywhere that asters grow Season adults fly from mid-June to mid-July in most areas, with partial second brood in early September Food larvae feed on leaves of asters (Aster spp.) Life Cycle eggs laid in bunches of about 40 on underside of host plant leaves; young larvae live and feed communally; third-stage larvae overwinter Remarks Can often be separated from Pearl Crescent by flight season: the Northern Crescent flies only in June, July, and early September, whereas the Pearl Crescent, flies all year in the southern US, April to November in the northern US, and May to late September in Canada.

Habitat:

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