Observation date: July 28, 2026
Submitted by: DeepSkyKelly
Specimen type: Photograph
Observation notes: As you write in BONM, understanding of this group is evolving, as are species designations, and I’m confused on a few points, so I’m hoping you can narrow this down.
On BONM, this individual most visually matches example D (A. mejicanus pueblo) on the comparison of Mormon Metalmark images, and fits with the yellow dots on the range map. However, it’s definitely got gray eyes, and (if I’m interpreting this correctly) an “interrupted line of orange scales set within a whitish longitudinal ray with white overscaling connecting discal and postdiscal white spots” which is indicative of Apache Metalmark. Then again, A. apache photos on BONM seem to have a lot more dorsal orange, while mine is quite dark overall. I can see that there are sections marked as needing revision: mejicanus is mentioned, but the description of A. apache, comment 1 says that NM no longer has any butterfly called Mexican Metalmark. I’ve noticed a lot of buckwheats at Capulin this year, but don’t know the species. I’ll have to check that.
Status: Resident
Verified by: stevecary
Verified date: July 29, 2026
Coordinator notes: Kelly, both BAMONA and iNaturalist are lagging in adopting the new DNA-based taxonomy for this group. Don't worry too much about the appearance of each individual. You have only one of this type of metalmark breeding in your area; it has the name pueblo, which BONM treats as a full species pursuant to Zhang et al. (2026), while BAMONA still treats it as a subspecies of Mexican Metalmark.
