{"id":12663,"date":"2021-12-15T12:08:30","date_gmt":"2021-12-15T18:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/?p=12663"},"modified":"2021-12-15T12:08:30","modified_gmt":"2021-12-15T18:08:30","slug":"striped-hairstreak-butterfly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/bug-of-the-week\/striped-hairstreak-butterfly\/","title":{"rendered":"Striped Hairstreak Butterfly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: All links below go to external sites.<\/em><\/p>\n

Howdy, BugFans,<\/p>\n

Hairstreaks are spiffy little butterflies that are named for the hair-like markings found on their underwings.\u00a0 Most have thin, twin tails (sometimes two pairs of tails) on the trailing edge of their hindwings, with bright blue\/blue and orange eyespots nearby. Says Clarence Weed, writing about hairstreaks in\u00a0Butterflies Worth Knowing<\/u>\u00a0(1922), \u201cthe slender tails, together with the enlargement of wings in back of them give the impression of a false head.\u00a0 Along with this unusual development of the wing is to be considered the fact that these butterflies nearly always alight head downward so that the false head, furnished with what looks like waving antennae, takes the place that would naturally be occupied by the true head<\/i>.\u201d\u00a0 Can you see a \u201cface\u201d here<\/a>? \u00a0Sometimes you see hairstreaks with a chunk of hindwing missing due to a predator thinking it was grabbing the tasty end of the butterfly and getting a less vital part instead.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re in the family Lycaenidae, which also includes the Blues\/Azures, Coppers, and Harvesters, and they\u2019re in the hairstreak subfamily Theclinae.\u00a0 These are not big, charismatic butterflies – Wisconsin species tend to be on the quietly-elegant side – but there are brightly-colored species in and near the tropics.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a brief tour of some hairstreak species:<\/p>\n