{"id":390,"date":"2006-01-27T10:21:00","date_gmt":"2006-01-27T17:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/fire\/2006\/01\/27\/gray-hairstreak-butterflies\/"},"modified":"2008-04-15T21:45:51","modified_gmt":"2008-04-16T04:45:51","slug":"gray-hairstreak-butterflies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/2006\/01\/27\/gray-hairstreak-butterflies\/","title":{"rendered":"Gray Hairstreak Butterflies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.butterfliesandmoths.org\/species?l=1553&#038;chosen_state=04*Arizona\">Gray Hairstreak (Strymon melinus)<\/a> is the most common hairstreak (Subfamily Theclinae) butterfly found here in Tucson, Arizona.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/images\/firefly\/2006\/January\/Strymon-melinus-2.jpg\" alt=\"Gray Hairstreak (Strymon melinus) butterfly\" title=\"Gray Hairstreak (Strymon melinus) butterfly\" width=\"480\" height=\"480\" class=\"post-photo\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Hairstreak butterflies are named for the small, slender, hair-like tails on their hindwings. Gray Hairstreaks have a single tail on each hindwing, and near this tail is a bright orange eyespot. These eye-like spots, with their adjacent hindwing tails that look a bit like antennae, deflect the attention of predators toward the edges of the wings, which the butterfly can afford to lose, and away from the butterfly&#8217;s actual head, which is definitely not expendable.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/images\/firefly\/2006\/January\/Strymon-melinus.jpg\" alt=\"Gray Hairstreak (Strymon melinus) butterfly\" title=\"Gray Hairstreak (Strymon melinus) butterfly\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" class=\"post-photo\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Gray Hairstreaks have dull bluish-gray <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nestbox.com\/Calvert\/butterflies\/grha.htm\">dorsal wing surfaces<\/a>. The ventral wing surfaces are predominantly gray with an orange, black, and white dashed line on both the forewing and hindwing. Gray Hairstreaks can be distinguished from the similar <a href=\"http:\/\/www.butterfliesandmoths.org\/species?l=1556&#038;chosen_state=04*Arizona\">Red-lined Scrub-Hairstreak (Strymon bebrycia)<\/a> by the black dashed line  that intersects with the orange eyespot on the Gray Hairstreak&#8217;s ventral hindwing.<\/p>\n<p>Gray Hairstreak caterpillars are not very choosy and will feed on a wide variety of host plants, which is one reason these butterflies are so common.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Gray Hairstreak (Strymon melinus) is the most common hairstreak (Subfamily Theclinae) butterfly found here in Tucson, Arizona. Hairstreak butterflies are named for the small, slender, hair-like tails on their hindwings. Gray Hairstreaks have a single tail on each hindwing, and near this tail is a bright orange eyespot. These eye-like spots, with their adjacent&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/2006\/01\/27\/gray-hairstreak-butterflies\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read More &rarr; <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arizona-butterflies-and-moths","category-arizona-invertebrates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}