A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Project Noah Nature School
Eurema mexicana, (Boisduval, 1836)
It is a medium sized Sulpher butterfly in the family Pieridae. The butterfly is not native to Texas it is an immigrant species from Mexico and extreme south Texas. This specimen is a female that has a wingspan of 40 mm. This butterflies nickname is the Wolf faced sulpher because of the forewing markings resembling a wolfs face. This butterfly can be seen in this area from April-November. This sulpher also has a point like tail at the tip of both hindwings.
Semi-urban, Fort Worth, Texas. This one was seen flying around a field with some wildflowers about to rest at 6:00 pm. This butterfly likes open desert type fields because the original habitat is semi-tropical Mexican terrain.
This butterfly species only feeds on Fern Acacia, (Acacia angustissima) in this area, that is a type of tree native to Mexico and the southern North America with a small population in the Western Ghats in Karnataka India. Similar species in the Mexican yellow's range include Boisduval's yellow (Eurema boisduvaliana) and the Salome yellow (Eurema salome).
Spotted on May 24, 2020
Submitted on May 25, 2020
4 Comments
There was lots of Fern Acacia (Acaciella angustissima), that probably helped of me to find one:)
Fantastic! There are so many species like that-- "locally common" as they say. Sometimes it pays to find the host plant or the plant they feed on first.
Thank you Brian, this species was also one of the ones I have been trying to find, after awhile I found a location where they were common.
Great spotting and notes ornithoptera80! I tried finding these when I was in Texas last year but was unsuccessful of getting a pic of one.