Tropical Buckeye

I stumbled across this butterfly this morning. I think he's a Tropical Buckeye (Junonia genoveva). He would have gone unnoticed had it not been so wicked hot and the sun so bright. I saw something hopping along in the grass and followed him to a patch of Mexican Clover (Richardia scabra L.). There he posed for a couple hundred close-ups.



This is a new species for me, so I'm not positive about the identification. The other possibility is that he is a Mangrove Buckeye (Junonia evarete) but we are far from any mangrove swamps.

Further complicating identification -- no Tropical Buckeye has been recorded as far north as Volusia County but . . . there's always a first. Global warming?



This guy is a True Brushfoot Butterfly (Subfamily Nymphalinae). He was behaving like a Tropical Buckeye. . . perched on the ground watching and waiting for a receptive female. He had no fear of humans. He walked right across my feet at one point. Not a good sign for his survival.