Variable Checkerspot

The variable checkerspot, Euphydryas chalcedona, is a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae first described by Doubleday in 1847, ranging across western North America from Alaska south to Baja California and east through the Rocky Mountains into Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, and Wyoming. Adults have brown or black wings extensively checkered with white and yellow and marked with some red on the dorsal surface, with a wingspan of 3.2 to 5.7 centimeters. Adults feed on flower nectar while larvae feed on plants including snowberry, paintbrush, Buddleja, Diplacus aurantiacus, and Scrophularia californica.