Great Purple Hairstreak Atlides halesus

The grail of hairstreaks in the East. And much less common there than in the west apparently. Except, maybe for Florida, where Eric seems to find them casually. Anywhere else, they are like local magic tricks. The foodplant being the parasitic Mistletoe plant, it is not easy to inspect the leaves and structures of these often high growing flora for the caterpillars or the butterfly. More often for butterfly chasers they appear at nectar sources that are sometimes nowhere close to a visible Mistletoe. Unmistakable, when they are seen, they are giants of the hairstreak world. Iridescent blue-purple on the inside of the wings, they are very fast fliers like most hairstreaks.