Pearl Crescent

Please add this beautiful spotting to the insects of Tennessee mission.

Pretty...nice spott..

Can't help smiling when I see your first photo - I understand that they are male but look like a nervous group of young females dressed up for their first party !! - lovely wing patterns..

According to the North American Butterfly Association list; Tennessee has 2 species of Crescents; Phyciodes tharos and Phyciodes phaon. These are Pearl Crescents. If you have a different list let me know and I will check my other sources. Puddling is usually done by males to get dissolved minerals necessary for sperm. The difference in sex according to Duke University is "Males and females are distinguished by the shape of the tip of the abdomen (fine point in females; blunt in males)." Their website also has some of the best selection of images I have found; http://www.duke.edu/~jspippen/butterflie...
Hope this information helps.

Please confirm. Members of the genus Phyciodes can be quite difficult. I'd say those are males mud-puddling, which means they are trying to gain nutrients from the ground via dirt, mud, and dead animals.
Read more about the phenomenon here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mud-puddlin...

Read about the Pearl Crescent here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Cresc...