ANCILLA DOTTED BLUE, (Euphilotes ancilla)
A tough to identify genus of blue butterflies which there will be no doubt of future shuffling of this taxonomic grouping. Field ID can be difficult and many will be just “a dotted blue” or Euphilotes species. All in this group eat buckwheats. The two photos below are a North Dakota state record from Square Butte on the Little Missouri National Grassland. Luckly, as I photographed it, I asked my friend and butterfly expert, Professor Ronald Royer of Minot State University to take a closer look. A quick glance and said it was a Melissa Blue, Plebejus melissa. I was looking at it close-up through my lens and I asked him to catch it and look closer, so he did. He then started jumping up and down saying it was a new state record and it was quite a ways out of its range.
