Striking Green-eyed Butterfly Discovered in Texas

As it sometimes happens with the discovery of new species, the latest new type of butterfly discovered in the United States has been known for decades, but nobody realized it was a unique species.

In a century-long case of mistaken identity, Vicroy's Ministreak, as the new species is called, went unrecognized for 100 years because it looks virtually identical to another butterfly species known as the Gray Ministreak. What sets the butterflies apart, however, is a characteristic often appreciated by us humans: Eyes.

The striking, olive green eye color of a living Vicroy's Ministreak are what alerted butterfly experts to the new species.

Eye color has not traditionally been used as an identifying trait of butterflies.

Museum samples of preserved Ministreaks all have similar dark brown eyes, but in the wild, the Vicroy's Ministreak's green eyes set it apart. After deconstructing the insect's genitalia, entomologists were able to confirm that the butterfly was a new species.

Vicroy's Ministreak lives alongside its thumbnail-sized counterpart in the shrub lands of south Texas.

As the discovery of new butterfly species in the United States hits a plateau, the find is particularly exciting for zoologists, who say the green-eyed butterfly may be the last truly distinctive butterfly species discovered in the country.

Jeffrey Glassberg, President of the North American Butterfly Association, discovered Vicroy's Ministreak, naming the species after his wife (Jane Vicroy Scott), though the butterfly's scientific name is Ministrymon janevicroy.

Glassberg, along with Robert Robbins, the the butterfly curator at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, described the new species in the open access journal Zookeys.