unidentified Satyrium hairstreak ~ 06/22/14 ~ Chews Ridge

unidentified male Satyrium hairstreak

posted 10/11/14 - This ID has had me stumped ever since June.  Both photo series are of the same individual as I turned around to capture different lighting angles.  It would have been great to get a photo of the topside (dorsal) wing color and abdomen to help ID, but that didn't happen.  As I was asking Chris his thoughts as to what it was, he forgot it was simply sitting on my finger and it promptly flew away into the sun when he made a sudden movement.  That's the handicap I've given myself this year by not collecting specimens.  Honestly, I didn't want to deal with lugging around a net and killing jar, pinning and spreading, and not to mention permit paperwork.  I think scrutinizing photos has been a good learning tool for me, but as evidenced here, it's not perfect.

I sent one of the lighter-colored pics around to my trusted butterfly posse (I hope they don't mind me calling them that), and I received a surprising variety of answers.  Their suggestions for ID are as follows (links open in new windows for photo comparisons):

gold-hunter's hairstreak (Satyrium auretorum) - BOA, BugGuide, Flickr

mountain mahogany hairstreak (Satyrium tetra) - BOA, BugGuide, Flickr

hedgerow hairstreak, aka sepia hairstreak (Satyrium saepium) - BOA, BugGuide, Flickr

I also trust Butterflies of America (BOA) more than self-reported ID sites like BugGuide and Flickr, which both have a few ID errors.  Even UC Irvine's Butterflies of Orange County has what I believe is a gold-hunter's in the middle of hedgerows.  These look-alike spp. are not well-illustrated in my field guides, so we're not alone in our uncertainty.  Can you ID?

ps - After initially insisting it was a mt. mahogany because of how dark it was, I'm now leaning towards a hedgerow hairstreak, mainly because of the tailend patterning.  There's a notable lack of any orange near the tails, which even if worn would have been an indication for gold-hunter's.  Besides, the tails are too long to be a male gold-hunter's, I think.  Oh, how do I know it's a male?  The relief of the teardrop-shaped scent gland (stigma) can be seen in the middle of the hindwing in the shadowier photos.

mountain mahogany hairstreak ~ 06/10/14 ~ Pinnacles

mountain mahogany hairstreak

Satyrium tetra

I asked Paul J. his ID of this individual, because I've never knowingly seen a mountain mahogany hairstreak before.  Although, I did note in the Pinnacles Count about seeing a hairstreak with a blue tail end (just like this one!) and was hoping my count partner from the Sequoias had gotten a picture.  Tiny, dark, zippy shadows.  The iridescent sheen looks so much like the hedgerow hairstreak I photographed only 2 days before that I can easily see getting them mixed up on the wing from a distance.  Up-close and depending on the lighting, it's darker than the hedgerow, without the bright copper color, and has an overall blue cast to the underside wings.  Other people note the white flecks in the wings and the pointier forewing tip compared to the hedgerow.  I have a hard time seeing other people's descriptions of shapes, so that doesn't work very well for me.  With the relative lack of tails, this is apparently a boy. 

ps 08/05/14 - Art also pointed out many male hairstreaks have a stigma on the forewing that shows through as a relief.  It's absent in females.