Map Snapshot
3 Records
Status
Hessel's Hairstreak (Callophrys hesseli) is similar in appearance to its more common relative, Juniper Hairstreak. Unlike that species, Hessel's uses the Atlantic White Cedar, a coastal plain swamp denizen, as a larval food plant, which greatly limits its potential range. Atlantic White Cedar swamps were quite frequently logged and drained, and this has further reduced the habitat for this butterfly, which is difficult to observe to begin with, as it spends much of its time at the tops of cedars. Hessel's Hairstreak was known from Worcester Co. in Maryland, and is currently considered extirpated, though the host tree species does still occur sparingly in portions of the coastal plain (Butterflies of Maryland: A Biological Summary and Checklist by Lynn Davidson & Richard Smith; Brock & Kaufman 2003; BAMONA site).
Relationships
Host plant is Atlantic White Cedar (Chamaecyparis thyoides).
Seasonality Snapshot
Source: Wikipedia
| Hessel's hairstreak | |
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Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Lepidoptera |
| Family: | Lycaenidae |
| Genus: | Callophrys |
| Species: | C. hesseli
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| Binomial name | |
| Callophrys hesseli (Rawson & Ziegler, 1950)
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| Synonyms | |
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Callophrys hesseli, or Hessel's hairstreak, is a butterfly of the family Lycaenidae.[2] It ranges from southern Maine south along the Atlantic coastal plain to northern Florida on the Gulf Coast. The species was first described (as Mitoura hesseli) by George W. Rawson and J. Benjamin Ziegler in 1950, in honor of the lepidopterist Sidney Adolphus Hessel.[3] It is listed as endangered in Connecticut by state authorities.[4]
The caterpillars feed on Atlantic white-cedar (Chamaecyparis thyoides) and adults consume nectar from flowers including swamp milkweed, shadbush, sand myrtle, sweet pepperbush, highbush blueberry, buttonbush, and dogbane.[5]
Subspecies
[edit]- Callophrys hesseli hesseli
- Callophrys hesseli angulata (Gatrelle, 2001) (South Carolina)
References
[edit]- ^ "NatureServe Explorer 2.0 Callophrys hesseli Hessel's Hairstreak". explorer.natureserve.org. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
- ^ Savela, Markku. "Callophrys hesseli (Rawson & Ziegler, 1950)". Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms. Retrieved November 11, 2017.
- ^ Rawson, George W. & Ziegler, J. Benjamin (June, 1950) "A New Species of Mitoura Scudder from the Pine Barrens of New Jersey (Lepidoptera, Lycaenidae)". Journal of the New York Entomological Society. LVIII(2). "We take pleasure in naming the new species in honor of Mr. Sidney A. Hessel, of Woodmere, N. Y., an enthusiastic collector and student of the Lepidoptera, in whose genial company we took our spring series."
- ^ ct.gov
- ^ "Hessel's Hairstreak Callophrys hesseli (Rawson & Ziegler, 1950) | Butterflies and Moths of North America". www.butterfliesandmoths.org.