#leipdoptera

[herpsandbirds]

Metalmark (Cremna heteroea), family Riodinidae, near Iquitos, Peru

Some entomologists now include Cremna in the genus Napaea.

photograph by David Griffiths

[typhlonectes]

Most Diverse Butterfly Center in the U.S. to be Bulldozed for Trump’s Border Wall

"It's going to cut right through here," Center Director Marianna Wright told The Guardian as she indicated where the wall's construction would cut off the center's access to its own land in the Rio Grande Valley at a point 1.2 miles from the border. Wright said the wall threatened to end the center entirely and harm the butterflies and other species like the Texas tortoise, Texas indigo snake and Texas horned lizard that also find refuge on its land.

The National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas is the most diverse butterfly sanctuary in the U.S. Some 200 species of butterflies find a home there each year, including the Mexican bluewing, the black swallowtail and the increasingly imperiled monarch. And, as soon as February, almost 70 percent of it could be lost to President Donald Trump's border wall, The Guardian reported Thursday...