West Texas and New Mexico Colllecting?

[rayrard]

Hey everyone,

I have a chance to get down to southwestern Texas and southern New Mexico around the 10th of March and I was wondering if there were any decent localities or species I could collect in that area? I know SE AZ and S Texas are productive any time of year, but we are going to be on a line between Austin TX and Roswell NM, and possibly skimming the Guadalupe Mtns, so there might be more of a northerly fauna there as opposed to the vagrant tropical stuff in SE AZ or S Texas.

I'd assume spring species will be out, and probably some year-rounders, but is there anything unique to collect as far as Lepidoptera goes during the day? I am used to and collected the eastern fauna so I'd be most interested in any endemics, vagrants, or western species. And is there any information on the moth fauna of that region and whether it would be a good sheeting area? Is the timing right to get any good moth species or beetle species (tiger beetles especially).

Thanks

[evra]

It's still pretty early in the year. That's going to be hard collecting. My experience with butterfly collecting is that it is pretty much all western species in S. New Mexico. It's pretty similar to collecting in S. AZ as far as species go: D. gillipus, P. multicaudata, Z. cessonia, and lots of common Nymphalids at higher elevation. The only species that I found that was really interesting in the spring was Callophyrs mcfarlandi, but that was in April.

A lot of those areas are fairly high elevation though. 3000-4000' in the lower areas and 5000-8000' at the higher elevations.

[58chevy]

Log onto texasento.net. There will be a contact link for Mike Quinn. Ask Mike for Nick Grishin's email. Nick can probably provide some good info. Among other things, he's an expert on giant skippers, which often fly in early spring. a guy named Steve Cary (I don't have his contact info) is a lep expert in New Mexico.

[rayrard]

Feb 20, 2015 12:11:29 GMT -8 evra said:

It's still pretty early in the year. That's going to be hard collecting. My experience with butterfly collecting is that it is pretty much all western species in S. New Mexico. It's pretty similar to collecting in S. AZ as far as species go: D. gillipus, P. multicaudata, Z. cessonia, and lots of common Nymphalids at higher elevation. The only species that I found that was really interesting in the spring was Callophyrs mcfarlandi, but that was in April.

A lot of those areas are fairly high elevation though. 3000-4000' in the lower areas and 5000-8000' at the higher elevations.

What about the San Antonio and Austin area of Texas? I will be going from there to New Mexico and I'm sure most of that is lower elevation and close to the "vagrant zone" from Mexico. I know the Guadaloupe Mtns are going to be cold still but the low elevations could be productive year round?

Thanks

[hypanartia]

There is a book "Finding butterflies in Texas" of RH Wauer that could help you. It describes the best spots all over the State, and the fauna you can found here and there.
Regards
Jesus