Wing span: 2 3/8 - 3 1/4 inches (6 - 8.2 cm).

Identification: Underside looks like a dead leaf. Male summer form is dull red with a barely hooked forewing tip, and a short tail on the hindwing. Male winter form is redder with more dark markings, a definitely hooked forewing tip, and a longer tail than the summer form. Both female forms are lighter red and have an irregular yellow submarginal band. The winter female form has hooked forewing tips.

Life history: Flight is swift, strong, and erratic. Males perch in clearings or on ridgetops to wait for females. Eggs are laid singly under host plant leaves; caterpillars eat leaves. A caterpillar changes shelters as it grows: first it perches on a leaf midvein, then lives in the shelter of a folded leaf, and finally rests in a rolled-up leaf. Adults hibernate, then mate in the spring.

Flight: The winter form flies from August-May, the summer form from July-August.

Caterpillar hosts: Goatweed (Croton capitatum), Texas croton (C. texensis), and prairie tea (C. monanthogynus); all in the spurge family (Euphorbiaceae).

Adult food: Sap, rotting fruit, dung, bird droppings.

Habitat: Deciduous woods and scrub, especially along waterways; open fields, roadsides, railroad tracks, and other places.

Range: Eastern Wyoming and eastern Colorado south to New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas; east to Michigan, South Carolina, Virginia, and the Gulf States.