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FAMILY FAMILY RIODINIDAE
Metalmarks
There are about 1,400 species of metalmarks, almost all in the American tropics. Of the 25 species
that occur in North America only one reaches Canada, in extreme southern Saskatchewan and British
Columbia. Most species (but not ours) have spots or lines of scales with a metallic sheen. One
additional species, the Swamp Metalmark (Calephelis muticum) occurs into northern Ohio and
southern Michigan and might possibly occur in southwestern Ontario; it is a small orange butterfly with
a series of black and metallic dashes forming bands on all four wings; it occurs in swamps and wet
meadows where the larval foodplant, Swamp Thistle (Cirsium muticum) grows.
Metalmarks are most closely related to the lycaenids, and are sometimes considered a subfamily of the
Lycaenidae. Like them, the male forelegs are reduced to less than half-size. The first segment (the
coxa) is extended into a spine beyond the point where it joins with the lower segments of the leg. The
larvae too are similar to lycaenid larvae, but are somewhat intermediate between the lycaenid shape
and the normal cylindrical larvae of other families. Unlike lycaenid larvae, the body hairs tend to group
into clusters on raised bumps (verrucae) along the body, as in many Nymphalids.
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