Blue Lightning: The Great Purple (Blue) Hairstreak

[trehopr1]

The Great purple hairstreak (Atlides halesus) remains at the apex of beauty and size amongst North American lycaenidae. It is one of our true "Southern" butterfly species found throughout the southern United States and southward to southern Mexico. The distribution of its caterpillar's food plant mistletoe extends its range along the east coast to Maryland. It reaches its range limits northward as far as the southern areas of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri.

Although its preferred and most frequently used common name is Great purple hairstreak, it does not have any true purple coloring on it. Hence, a few publications (Gerberg and Arnett 1989, Emmel 1975, Pyle 1981) have instead "coined" the name Great blue hairstreak which is more appropriate.

This species prefers moist hardwood and bottomland forests where its singular food plant mistletoe grows best. Adults are noted for being Canopy dwellers but, will come down on occasion to nectar at flowers. It is said to have 2 generations in most of its haunts but, most records indicate late summer or early fall captures made during September and October. The only known record of this butterfly in my state of Illinois is a single sweep net capture on Sept.17.1966 / Union County.

I imagine, that even for collectors in southern regions this butterfly must surely be a "rare day" capture. And of coarse, getting a truly nice (fresh and fairly intact) example is much like winning the lottery. In fact, there are probably more bred examples present in collections than actual wild collected ones...

Below, is a picture of my natural wild collected (female) from northern Florida circa. Oct.15.1969

Discovered, in a mixed drawer of butterflies being parted out from an old collection; I pounced upon it immediately knowing what lay before me. Its full data verified it's provenance. With a male I acquired some 20 years ago she finally completes a long awaited pair of this magnificent and grand species !

[larrycurlymoe]

One of my favorites as well. It's like a small Morpho. I too think it should be called Great Blue Hairstreak. I've never seen or heard of a purple specimen. Great Purple Hairstreak would be a good name for the Colorado Hairstreak. Another equally impressive (and nearly identical) hairstreak is the White-M.

[trehopr1]

I concure with your sentiments. The White-M is indeed equally impressive but, is only half the size of the Great purple. Wild caught ones are very hard to come by. I have a friend who has captured maybe 6 or so of them here in Illinois over many years. Another collector whom I met was at my friend's house the same day and upon seeing them exclaimed "would you just look at those pennies from heaven".

I believe I have a photo somewhere of his unit tray holdings and I shall post it when I find it...

[trehopr1]

Aha' I knew I had that White-M Hairstreak photo somewhere... so, here it is below.


White-M hairstreak (Parrhasius m-album)

Probably, one of the most sought after hairstreak species this side of the Mississippi !

And darn tough to find too...

Below, is a close-up of the pair.



These little fellows just "make my socks roll up and down".

[trehopr1]

Here, we have yet another pretty tough find (as butterfly species go). This is the Red-banded hairstreak (Calycopis cecrops). My friend has managed to find about a dozen of these over the years here in Illinois. Don't know how he does it... Part luck and part knowing when (time frame) and where. Because he is a specialist on the Illinois butterfly fauna I imagine he has researched specimens held in research collections here. He sure has a "knack" for finding all the tough ones !



This species is really quite nice no matter which side you may see. The underside, is dazzling too with its bold red bands and black/silver cells located at the tails !

I better stop before this becomes a hairstreak thread !

[larrycurlymoe]

Wow, that white-m tray is impressive! I have managed to collect only 4 of them over the years, and none of them are in perfect condition. Calycopis cecrops, along with the nearly identical Calycopis isobeon, are not rarities in my area (Houston, TX) but are also cool-looking species.

[jhyatt]

We Southern collectors have it made! I've very often in mid-May seen multiple specimens of A. halesus nectaring on flowering
chinquapin trees in coastal Georgia, along with the slightly more common P. m-album and a host of other hairstreaks. Always a thrill to see them, though!

I've also taken halesus on goldenrod flowers in GA in the fall.

In the southern Appalachians of Tennessee (where I live most of the time), halesus is almost a once-in-a-lifetime find, despite the presence of
a fair amount of mistletoe. An m-album turns up once every few years; I once saw Charlie Covell take one at the top of the highest peak in KY,
Big Black Mtn. on the KY-VA border. The first halesus I ever caught was in the "Land Between the Lakes" section of
far western Tennessee, very near the KY border, in late summer.

Cheers,
jh

[bandrow]

Greetings,

Jhyatt - Your comments about the lycenids in mid-May in Georgia reminded me of my trip to Sapelo in 2018. When I left your place, I stopped at a number of places along Route 57/99 to check blooming chinquapins for cerambycids. On most, I saw at least a couple of blues, and on one really big tree, there were at least a dozen. However, my "collector bias" caused me to pay little attention to them, as I was focused on finding beetles.

Wonder how often any one of us simply ignores a specimen in the field that someone else here has been wanting for years?!

Cheers!
Bandrow


 

[jhyatt]

Here's my first attempt to insert a photo. Hope I've done this right!

This is my unit tray of A. halesus, mostly GA and TN specimens:

imgur.com/cO3y8DB

jh

[jhyatt]

Hmmm... I got a lick to the image, but no image. Better try again.

These are GA and FL specimens of A. m-album:



jh

[jhyatt]

Ah, that's better. Here is the tray of A. halese referred to a couple of posts above:

J. Hyatt

[Adam Cotton]

Wow, those are superb.

Adam.

[trehopr1]

Now those pictures are indeed magnificent. Man, have you been fortunate living where you do...

Glad to see that you have now fully "transitioned" over to showing us pictures. Sure wish others might do the same.

I knew somebody out there had to have some kind of holdings to show us; better than just my singular specimen photo.

[jhyatt]

I now see from my photo that there's one halesus male I need to de-grease, too!

Thanks for the kind word, Adam. I really do love hunting for hairstreaks. Sometimes I wish I were in Arhopala country like you.

Bob Androw, I've probably passed many by that you'd have liked -- it takes a heck of a beetle for me to be tempted to catch it! I have a May trip to Sapelo scheduled, but
somehow I suspect it's not gonna happen. Sad.

Trehopr, Maybe I'll post another Lycaenid unit tray or two just to get it fixed in my creaky old mind how it's done.

Cheers,
jh

[larrycurlymoe]

Does anybody have pictures of their Colorado hairstreaks (Hypaurotis crysalus) that you could share with us?