''Satyrium caryaevorus'', the hickory hairstreak, is a

butterfly Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprises ...

of the family

Lycaenidae Lycaenidae is the second-largest family of butterflies (behind Nymphalidae, brush-footed butterflies), with over 6,000 species worldwide, whose members are also called gossamer-winged butterflies. They constitute about 30% of the known butterfly ...

. It is found in eastern North America, from southern

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

west to

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the List of U.S. states and territories by population, 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minne ...

and

Iowa Iowa () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wiscon ...

, south in the

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. The ...

to eastern

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to ...

. The

wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingspan ...

has been reported as 22–28 mm and 29–35 mm. The hindwing has one tail. The underside is light brown with broad, offset, white postmedian dashes. The hindwings have a blue tail-spot and a black-capped orange eyespot. Adults are on wing from June to August in one generation per year. They feed on the nectar of various flowers, including

common milkweed ''Asclepias syriaca'', commonly called common milkweed, butterfly flower, silkweed, silky swallow-wort, and Virginia silkweed, is a species of flowering plant. It is native to southern Canada and much of the United States east of the Rocky Moun ...

dogbane Dogbane, dog- bane, dog's bane, and other variations, some of them regional and some transient, are names for certain plants that are reputed to kill or repel dogs; " bane" originally meant "slayer", and was later applied to plants to indicate t ...

New Jersey tea ''Ceanothus americanus'' is a species of ''Ceanothus'' shrub native to North America. Common names include New Jersey tea, Jersey tea ceanothus, variations of red root (red-root; redroot), mountain sweet (mountain-sweet; mountainsweet), and wild ...

staghorn sumac ''Rhus typhina'', the staghorn sumac, is a species of flowering plant in the family Anacardiaceae, native to eastern North America. It is primarily found in southeastern Canada, the northeastern and midwestern United States, and the Appalachian M ...

, and

white sweet clover ''Melilotus albus'', known as honey clover, white melilot (UK), Bokhara clover (Australia), white sweetclover (USA), and sweet clover, is a nitrogen-fixing legume in the family Fabaceae. ''Melilotus albus'' is considered a valuable honey plant ...

. The larvae feed on the leaves of bitternut hickory (''

Carya cordiformis ''Carya cordiformis'', the bitternut hickory, also called bitternut or swamp hickory, is a large pecan hickory with commercial stands located mostly north of the other pecan hickories. Bitternut hickory is cut and sold in mixture with the true h ...

''), butternut (''

Juglans cinerea ''Juglans cinerea'', commonly known as butternut or white walnut,Snow, Charles Henry ''The Principal Species of Wood: Their Characteristic Properties'' 2nd ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1908. p. 56. is a species of walnut native to the ...

''), red oak (''

Quercus rubra ''Quercus rubra'', the northern red oak, is an oak tree in the red oak group (''Quercus'' section ''Lobatae''). It is a native of North America, in the eastern and central United States and southeast and south-central Canada. It has been intro ...

''), white ash (''

Fraxinus americana ''Fraxinus americana'', the white ash or American ash, is a species of ''ash tree'' native to eastern and central North America. The species is native to mesophytic hardwood forests from Nova Scotia west to Minnesota, south to northern Florida, ...

''), and hawthorn ('' Crataegus'' species).Hickory Hairstreak
Butterflies of Canada The species overwinters as an egg. The MONA or Hodges number for ''Satyrium caryaevorus'' is 4283.

References

Further reading