Unlike many butterfly larva, gray hairstreak caterpillars will eat anything, dining on assorted host plants including those belonging to the legume, rose, and mallow families, among others. Adult butterflies live on nectar from many different flowers, wild and cultivated.
Gray hairstreaks or Strymon melinus are smallish, having a wingspan of 7/8 to 1-3/8 inch. The upper wing surface is slate gray with a patch of orange on the hindwing near its tail. The hindwing on the underside also has a couple splashes of orange near the tail, and otherwise is gray with rows of black dashes and dots having white shadows.
A few other butterfly species have grayish coloring with orange blots and tails such as Eastern Tailed Blue, Sylvan Hairstreak and California Hairstreak, but are otherwise much different in appearance and adaptation.
Gray hairstreak butterfly
nectaring on serviceberry
flowers
Gray hairstreak butterfly
basking on mullein
Gray hairstreak butterfly
nectaring on silverleaf phacelia
Gray hairstreak butterfly
nectaring on parsnip-flowered buckwheat
