2024 April 20 evening

[Posted early morning April 21 because of technical problem.]

   Ken Vaughan sends a photograph of a Pacific Forktail from the Beaver Lake Retriever Ponds this morning.

Ischnura cervula  (Odo.:  Coenagrionidae)  Ken Vaughan

Gordon Hart writes:  Today, Saturday April 20, Anne-Marie and I went on a VNHS field trip up Jocelyn Hill in the Highlands. It was cool at the start, but later we started to see Western Spring Azures, and then one Brown Elfin on an arbutus leaf, one of its larval food plants. I have attached a photo.

Brown Elfin  Callophrys augustinus  (Lep.: Lycaenidae)   Gordon Hart

   In recent years on this site, this butterfly has been referred to as the Western Brown Elfin or Western Elfin Incisalia iroides.  In the 2023 ATC, which we are now trying to follow on this site, it has been reunited with the Brown Elfin with its former scientific name Callophrys augustinus.  Incisalia is now treated as a subgenus within Callophrys, and iroides is treated as a subspecies within augustinus. Thus the scientific name including subgenus and subspecies would be Callophrys (Incisalia) augustinus iroides.
On this site we don’t usually (unless there is some special reason) refer to subgenera and subspecies.