Nemoria caerulescens Prout, 1912. [7042]
Nemoria caerulescens, adult male. Collection of Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH). Specimen collected 30 July 1989, Rio Arriba Co, NM.
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Nemoria caerulescens, adult female. Collection of Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia (ANSP). Specimen collected 01 August 1918, Jemez Mountains, NM.
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Nemoria caerulescens, adult female. Collection of National Museum of Natural History (NMNH Smithsonian). Specimen collected 09 August 1989, Bandelier Nat'l Mon. NM.
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Nemoria caerulescens, adult female. Same specimen as female at left, showing yellow-tan front and legs. .
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Nemoria caerulescens is a southwestern species with a patchy distribution in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado. Paul Opler reported it was known from fewer than five locations in the southwest [Rare and Sensitive Insects of Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, 2000]. Ferguson (1985) reported caerulescens had been collected from the Davis and Guadalupe Mountains in West Texas, the Sangre de Cristos in New Mexico, the Chiricahua Mountains in southeastern Arizona and Estes Park, Colorado.Nemoria caerulescens has a bluish green wing color that distinguishes it from the even grass green shade of Nemoria obliqua. It is also distinctly striated with broad white bands that are particularly noticeable in the space between the pm lines and the wing margin. The am and pm lines may be especially wide, though this is not always the case. The abdomen is usually marked with several small but distinct white spots that do not have the red or brown encircling coloration often found on other species. The white spots may occasionally have a very narrow band of yellow marginal scales, but these are often visible only with a microscope. Wing fringes are white, with an outer pinkish shade when the entire fringe length is present and fresh. Ferguson (1985) reported that a red terminal line is typically absent but may be present in some specimens.
Ferguson (1985) reported the early stages as unknown; we successfully reared Nemoria caerulescens larvae from a female collected in June, 2007 in Rio Arriba Co., New Mexico but had no success in determining the natural host plant. More recently, Dave Wagner has made clear and definitive associations of this species with the host plant in New Mexico and Texas.
For Nemoria caerulescens larvae, click here
Ferguson (1985) reported the early stages as unknown; we successfully reared Nemoria caerulescens larvae from a female collected in June, 2007 in Rio Arriba Co., New Mexico but had no success in determining the natural host plant. More recently, Dave Wagner has made clear and definitive associations of this species with the host plant in New Mexico and Texas.
For Nemoria caerulescens larvae, click here
Nemoria caerulescens, adult male, collected Jemez Springs, NM