chalcedona-like

This grouping is for populations which look different from the bulk of E. anicia , and which sometimes seem to intergrade with populations of E. chalcedona to the west and south. They have male genitalia that are of the E. anicia type. These populations tend to occur in drier and often lower elevation habitats than more typical populations of E. anicia , but in many areas the two basic types occur side by side in the same locations and behave as different entities. Most often these less orange populations start flying somewhat earlier than the more orange and more typical E. anicia populations. It is tempting to call them all subspecies of E. chalcedona , but they are listed as belonging to E. anicia by most authors, and the situation may not be quite so simple. There may be a distinct species involved. Indeed, some of these have been considered to belong to a distinct species, using the name E. bernadetta . This is a tempting solution, but bernadetta is perhaps not the oldest name available for the group, so it seems best to wait until more studies are completed before jumping on this name for the whole group. The situation remains a bit confusing, but these secondary groupings under the species names will help to sort similar butterflies together in what hopefully are more useful categories that are easier to understand, and reflect better (at least somewhat) the real big picture.