Anthanassa texana
(W.H.Edwards, 1863) · speciesAt a glance
Sources5 archives
Databases and archives Anthanassa texana's data was compiled from.
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Anthanassa texana, the Texan crescentspot, is a species of butterfly in the family Nymphalidae. It is found from Guatemala north through Mexico to southern California, east across the southern United States to northern Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. Strays may be found up to Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, South Dakota, and central Nevada.A new species of Neominois from northeastern Mexico (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae: Satyrinae) The habitat consists of deserts, dry gulches, open areas, streamsides, road edges, and city parks. The wingspan is 32–48 mm. The outer margin is indented below the tip of the forewing. The upperside is black with small white spots and some rusty red near the wing bases. The hindwings have a median band of cream-colored spots. Adults are on wing from March to November in southern Florida and Arizona. They are on wing year round in southern Texas and the tropics. There are several generations per year. Adults feed on flower nectar. The larvae feed on the leaves of various low-growing plants of the family Acanthaceae, including Diciliptera brachiata, Jacobinia carnea, Beloperone, Siphonoglossa, and Ruellia species.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
No structured trait data for this taxon yet.
A DNA barcode is a short, standardised stretch of genes that works like a fingerprint — enough to tell one species from another. Below is the molecular trace Anthanassa texana has left across the world's sequence archives.
At a glance
★ the standard DNA barcode for this group — the short region actually read to tell this species apart. The rest are extra genes sequenced along the way.
How far back this lineage goes — and how we know. Everything here is measured in Ma, short for “mega-annum”: millions of years ago. The chart reads left to right like a calendar of the Earth, from the deep past on the left to today at the right edgetop to bottom like a core drilled through the Earth, from the deep past at the top down to today at the bottom.
At a glance
When this lineage existed
How to read this: the coloured strip along the bottomdown the left is the geological calendar — the standard epochs (Pliocene, Pleistocene…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. This lineage is a young one, so the strip is zoomed in to epochs — the finer subdivisions inside a period. The orange marker is the DNA clock: DNA accumulates mutations at a roughly steady rate, so comparing this species' DNA with its relatives estimates when the lineage split off — independently of any fossil.
Record type9 582 records
Range
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Museum / Voucheredphysical evidence
Backed by a physical specimen — a herbarium sheet, sample or voucher held in a collection. “Vouchered” means supported by material evidence, not just an observation.
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Holding institutions12 of 21 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| New Haven, US | 107 |
| San Diego, US | 69 |
| Mexico City, MX | 63 |
| OSUClocation not on record | 40 |
| Cambridge, US | 30 |
| ASUlocation not on record | 26 |
| Philadelphia, US | 6 |
| Cleveland Museum of Natural History, OH (CLEV)location not on record | 5 |
| Natural History Museum of Utahlocation not on record | 4 |
| München, DE | 4 |
| Champaign, US | 3 |
| King Saud Universitylocation not on record | 2 |
| Tapachula, MX | 2 |
| Vernal, US | 2 |
| Chicago, US | 2 |
| Universidad Católica de Manizaleslocation not on record | 2 |
| Toronto, CA | 2 |
| Georgia Museum of Natural Historylocation not on record | 2 |
| East Lansing, US | 2 |
| CUlocation not on record | 1 |
| MZLUlocation not on record | 1 |
Where the DNA of Anthanassa texana was picked up in samples of water, soil or air — nobody saw the organism, only its DNA left behind. A trace is a clue that the species was near, not a confirmed sighting.
Signal
Where its DNA was found
How strong is each trace?
Modelled climatemodelled
How to read this: each dot is one detection of this species' DNA in an environmental sample. The confidence meter weighs how many independent studies and places back up the signal — one detection in one study is a hint; many across several studies is solid. Records dated before 2008 (when eDNA methods began) are treated as likely mislabeled and left off the map.