When resting with wings closed this butterfly has excellent camouflage, the jagged outline of the wings giving the appearance of a withered leaf, making the butterfly inconspicuous when resting on a tree trunk or when hibernating. The Eastern Comma, in common with other "anglewings", has pronounced indentations along the wing margins. But here are extra clues: the eastern comma can be slightly larger, and its wings are less noticeably streaked. The underside of the Gray Comma is charcoal gray with fine dark striations; forewing with 3-4 light arrows in a dark border. Comma butterflies can be identified by their prominent orange and dark brown/black dorsal wings. Similar species: If you can see the underside hindwing, question marks have a dot next to the curved white marking, and eastern commas have blunt ends on the white comma. Two … Dark/Summer form - Pelham, ON 2013/06/26. Butterflies, in their different life stages, have many ways of avoiding predators. Silver spot at center of hindwing is fishhook-shaped. Horseshoe Bend Park, Hunterdon Co., NJ, 7/29/13. If you love butterflies, there are many ways to increase your enjoyment. The Illinois Butterfly Monitoring Network engages citizen scientists in the process of collecting quantitative data on butterfly populations. Gray Comma Polygonia progne: Genus Polygonia Subfamily True Brushfoots Family Brushfooted Butterflies All Massachusetts Species: ... Massachusetts Butterfly Atlas Website: More info: Butterflies of Massachusetts Website: Photo by Erik Nielsen - 8/18/2002 Pittsburg, NH : Top of Page. state_status: SR - S1: fed_status: G5: synonym: other_name: Gray Anglewing: edit_done: page_num: 76: sort_order: 76.0 It takes around 7-10 days to emerge into a butterfly. When they perch on tree bark, they are virtually invisible. French common name: Polygone gris. They feed primarily on tree sap in the early spring. The numbers and abundance of individuals of these species varies from year to year. Other possible host plants include Rhododendron nudiflorum (pinxter flower), occasionally birch, and dubiously elm (Scott, 1986). about. The forewing has a dark outer edge with some black chevrons in it. Gray Hairstreak Butterfly Chrysalis static1.1.sqspcdn.com. They seem particularly fond of the semi-open Hawthorne grove at the western edge of the woods, where I have reliably found them every year for four years now. Viewed from above, the dark border of gray commas varies by season: in summer, the border is quite wide, but the winter form has it narrower, covering only about a fourth of the wing. Like the Eastern Comma, the Gray Comma has two seasonal forms, with the summer form being much darker on the hindwing. North Gower, ON 2012/03/22. Since the adults overwinter, these are some of the earliest spring butterflies, taking wing at the first few warm days, about mid-March here, near Chicago. More than 700 species in North America north of Mexico, Wildflowers, Grasses and Other Nonwoody Plants, The 3 black forewing spots lack a black line above, Hindwing “comma” marking is L-shaped with tapered ends, “Comma” mark also lacks the additional dot of the question mark, Much grayer beneath than the eastern comma or question mark. ... Gray Comma (Polygonia progne) << Previous. Determined by a combination of upper hindwing black border wide with small yellow spots, underwing surfaces charcoal gray and heavily striated, silver-white "comma" on the under hindwing tapered at both ends. Mourning Cloak. The scalloped edges and cryptic colouring of the wings conceal hibernating adults amongst dead leaves, while the larvae, flecked with brown and white markings, bear close resemblance to bird droppings. The Eastern Comma is very similar above. The butterfly gets its name from the only white marking on its underside, which resembles a comma. wisconsinbutterflies.org Gray Comma is a woodland butterfly, found at Fermilab in the "Big Woods" (ELM-24) on the western part of the site. As explained on the Eastern Comma page, we are retaining the common name as Gray Comma, as opposed to Gray Anglewing, as is used on the Butterflies of America website. Holding on with only the middle pairs of prolegs, they bend the front half of their body to the side and lift the rear end into the air. Green Comma. Above, this species is similar to the Eastern and Gray Commas, but has very jagged wing margins and is more boldly marked with black including an often prominent black dot just above the dot nearest the trailing edge of the upper wing, a dot that is lacking or faint in the Eastern Comma and Gray Comma. 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