Art Shapiro's Butterfly Site
Monitoring butterfly populations across Central California for more than 35 years… Lycaena arota virginiensis
Common Name: Desert Tailed Copper
Named for Virginia City, Nevada, not for the State of Virginia. This subspecies is paler beneath and correspondingly more contrastingly-marked than nominate arota, which it replaces in the Great Basin. During the course of this study the population at Sierra Valley, which was nominate arota, went extinct and was subsequently replaced by a population more like virginiensis in appearance. It, in turn, declined in 2004 and was not seen in 2005 - perhaps it will switch back? Single-brooded in the second half of summer and straggling into autumn; visits Alfalfa, Rabbitbrush, Thistles, Sweet Clover, Aster, etc.
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