Gorgon Copper
Lycaena gorgon
Description 1 1/8-1 1/4" (28-32 mm). Male above generally copper-brown with purple reflections and a few indistinct dark spots; HW margin slightly yellowish. Female above pale yellow with brown spots and smudges and orange marginal zigzags. Both sexes below pale whitish to tan-brown with many small black spots; HW near margin has row of separate, black-capped orange crescents.
Similar Species Male Purplish Copper usually darker tan below with orange zigzags rather than crescents. Female Great Gray Copper lacks yellow suffusion above.
Life Cycle Egg cream-colored; overwinters on stem of host plant, wild buckwheat (Eriogonum elongatum, E. nudum). Mature caterpillar pale turquoise with long white hairs. Chrysalis is blue-green with some yellowish coloring.
Flight 1 brood; late May-June, sometimes into July.
Habitat Restricted to areas where wild buckwheat grows; commonly chaparral, oak, and pine woodlands, brushy hillsides, gulches, and roadcuts.
Range Pacific border from S. Oregon south to N. Baja California, east to Warner Mountains of NE. California, Sierra Nevada, and desert edge in S. California.
Discussion Although the male and female Gorgons are similar to many other coppers, the 2 sexes are dramatically dissimilar to each other in color and pattern. This dissimilarity is known as sexual dimorphism. There have even been instances of what is known as bilateral gynandromorphism in the Gorgon - this is a condition in which a single butterfly exhibits female characteristics over one half of its body and male characteristics over the other half.
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