Dark Tropical Buckeye (Junonia stemosa)

In the US, this newly described buckeye species is found roughly from Houston southward into Mexico, and mostly within a couple hundred miles of the coast. There's much confusion in the field guides over the proper scientific names for buckeyes. Recent scientific literature indicates that the entity seen in south Florida and called "Tropical Buckeye", is a different species, now named Junonia zonalis. These updates have not yet made it into the popular field guides. For more information, see Cong et al., (2020) Speciation in North American Junonia from a genomic perspective. Systematic Entomology (2020), DOI: 10.1111/syen.12428.

'Dark' Tropical Buckeye (Junonia stemosa)
Chihuahua Woods RR tracks, Hidalgo Co., TX
18 Oct 2004

Treated previously as Junonia evarete nigrosuffusa.

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Created on ... May 6, 2007 | jeffpippen9@gmail.com