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Maine’s First White M Hairstreak

One of the big draws for me getting into birding when I was a high schooler was the opportunity to make contributions to ornithology through citizen science. I found eBird early on and seeing my sightings fill in gaps on range maps or bar charts provided the instant gratification I needed to stick with the hobby. Butterflies became a natural extension of bird-interest since I already had the tools to document them and the Maine Butterfly Survey was another chance to contribute to something larger than my personal endeavor. Honestly though, I was a terrible butterfly atlaser. I submitted one or two unusual sightings but couldn’t be distracted from birds for long. Finally, three years after the “official” finish of the atlas, I made my contribution to Maine’s lepidopterology by finding the state’s first White M Hairstreak!

And now the humbling story: Working in a 9’x10′ office with no ventilation this week has been challenging (I’ve felt cooler in a sauna…) so when our photographer Ari asked for help looking for Monarch caterpillars it was a welcome reprieve from my 8 hour schvitz. Walking down a path at Gilsland Farm to the marsh overlook we spotted a hairstreak, a family (actually a subfamily: Theclinae) of butterflies that tend to be small, gray, showing underwings patterned with black and white lines or bars and splotches of oranges or reds. I made the very amateur mistake of not looking critically and assuming it was the common Banded Hairstreak (Satyrium calanus) that I’ve seen previously at Gilsland Farm. I snapped a few photos before leaving the little adult where we found it.

White M Hairstreak – Falmouth, ME – 24 June 2018

Jump ahead two days and I finally looked at the photos on my computer. The funny thing about Banded Hairstreaks is that they have dual lines forming BANDS on their wings, while the one I photographed only had single lines. Not only that, it had a bold white “M” formed by the lines on its hind-wing. *facepalm* A quick check of Cech and Tudor’s Butterflies of the East Coast settled my unease but many thanks to Herb Wilson and John Calhoun of the Maine Butterfly Survey for an official confirmation that this was Maine’s first record of White M Hairstreak (Parrhasius m-album).

This species’ historic range covered: “Connecticut west to southeast Iowa and Missouri, south to east Texas, the Gulf Coast, and peninsular Florida” but Cech mentions in Butterflies of the East Coast that “This mainly southern butterfly has extended its range northward gradually in recent decades.” White M Hairstreaks’ host plant is a variety of oaks, which is the predominant deciduous tree around Gilsland Farm. Given the fresh condition of this individual it makes one wonder if there is a local population of these butterflies rather than it being a southern vagrant.