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| A terrible photo, but still diagnostic of Common Ringlet. |
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| I'm calling this one a Western White, based on the pattern on the forewing and the dark scaling visible on the hindwing. Closest alternative would be Checkered White but that one has a cleaner hindwing. |
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| Milbert's Tortoiseshell |
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| Canadian Tiger Swallowtail, set apart from the other two practically identical Tiger Swallowtails based entirely on range. |
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| Four-spotted Skimmer; the wing details don't show well here, but the way the abdomen looks kind of flat and shades towards black at the end is pretty diagnostic too. |
And now to Yellowknife:
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| Forest Tent Caterpillar; startlingly pretty for such a pest. Also far more orange than I'm used to, but it's apparently still the same species. |
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| Boreal Whiteface; the only other Whiteface in that area with that much red spotting down the abdomen is apparently the Hudsonian, which would not have that final red spot on S8 (i.e., the abdominal segment third from the end). Apparently it's also larger, but without seeing the two of them side-by-side I find that harder to use as an ID feature. |
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| Either a Northern or Boreal Bluet, apparently those two are practically indistinguishable unless you look at very specific tiny features with a hand lens. Which I obviously did not do. But my gut's leaning towards Boreal based on what can be seen of the appendages at the end of the tail. |
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| Mosaic Darners are the worst. This lovely thing? I have no idea what it is because a) it's a female, and b) I couldn't get a clear shot of the lateral stripes (i.e., a side view without the wings in the way). |
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| Spear-marked Black Moth. Yep, it's a moth, even though it doesn't have fuzzy antennae. |
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| This one I think is the Hudsonian Whiteface, because the red spotting is a little more discrete (more spots, less of a line) and stops one segment further up than on the Boreal. Is it also smaller? Who knows! |
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| Gruesome, but easy to photograph - and this one's a male, which helps. The broad, notched thoracic stripes with the just-barely-visible pale spot between them make this a Lake Darner. Honestly, the last one was probably also a Lake but I'm just not confident enough to make that call. |
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| Another Four-spotted Skimmer, so we can all admire the wing pattern. |
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| Arctic Blue; this one was a pretty easy call based on the brownish tinges and just the overall degree of white-ringed dark spotting. |
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| Yet another Whiteface. Only the barest hint of red spots down the abdomen, though, so given the location it's either a Canada or a Belted Whiteface. More info needed to say for sure: the Canada apparently has a "creamy" white face as opposed to the "chalk" white face of the Belted. Sure. And the Canada is smaller, but we've already covered how useless that can be without something for scale. |
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| I had this one pegged as a Silvery Blue at first, but I think now it's a Greenish Blue. The spots are smaller, they're not really ringed in white the way they would be on a Silvery, and there's a dark spot on the upper side (not shown here, but I have it in another photo) that just really shouldn't be there on a Silvery. |
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| American Emerald; plain dark abdomen with a single white ring, bright green eyes, and bronze-green 'shoulders'. |
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| Based on very limited information I called this one a Giant Sulphur at first, but I think what we have here is actually a Palaeno Sulphur, aka a Moorland Clouded Yellow. The key features are the complete lack of border on the white hindwing spot, and the dusting of dark scales all over the hindwing underside. |
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| Mourning Cloak |
If you made it this far, I think I owe you a cookie.
