Pearl Crescent
Phyciodes tharos
Pearl Crescent · Brooklyn Botanic Garden · 24 August 2025
A Pearl Crescent in the August border at the Botanic Garden, one of the most common small butterflies in the East, on the wing from spring to autumn across several overlapping generations. It lives in meadows, roadsides and gardens across the eastern United States, and the caterpillars feed on asters, which is why it is never far from a garden.
The name comes from a small pearly crescent on the underside of the hindwing, usually the most reliable way to separate it from the very similar Northern Crescent where their ranges overlap.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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