In my backyard, I have a little cluster of brilliant orange canna lilies. I was admiring them when I noticed that some of the big, flat leaves had a suspiciously chewed look, and some of the edges were rolled over. When I pulled back the rolled-over edges, I found a few of these fat little…
Tag: Papilionoidea
Monarch Butterfly
Butterflies are hard to catch with my usual rig — you have to get very close and most butterflies won’t tolerate that, monarch included. This lovely female monarch (Danaus plexippus) was kind enough to let me try out my new iPhone 12 Pro Max on her — she’ll have to be my representative of an…
Zebra Longwing Butterfly
This is Florida’s state butterfly! A lovely and distinctive black butterfly with narrow yellow stripes on its elongated wings, the zebra longwing (also known as the zebra heliconian) is native to peninsular Florida and south Texas in the US (sometimes migrating into states further northward). They also live all over South and Central America. Heliconius…
Polydamas Swallowtail
This glorious, 6 cm long gothic horror will grow up to be a gorgeous black and gold butterfly. The polydamas swallowtail (also known as the gold rim swallowtail and tailless swallowtail) is one of only two butterflies in the genus Battus in the US. It is also the only swallowtail in the US to lack…
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail
A common and striking yellow and black butterfly seen across the eastern United States, this is the eastern tiger swallowtail, Papilio glaucus. It’s a male, because its hindwings have almost no blue — in females, there are big blue patches right above the black parts on the hindwings. Females are actually dimorphic, and have two…
Dorantes Longtail
The family Hesperiidae, including the skippers, duskywings and cloudywings, is an exercise in frustration for field identification: 3500 species of “medium size, brown butterflies with spots” and varying patterns on the wing fringes. Add in the vagaries of amateur entomologist photography and, well. I originally identified this as a southern cloudywing, Thorybes bathyllus, based on…
Whirlabout
This dainty little yellow skipper butterfly has one of the neatest names I’ve seen — the whirlabout. Its Latin name is Polites vibex. They live in the southeastern US coastal plains (think Texas – Florida – North Carolina), mostly in sunny, open areas. The caterpillars eat grasses, especially Bermudagrass and St. Augustine grass. “Skipper” butterflies…
Horace’s Duskywing
Duskywing skipper butterflies (genus Erynnis) are generally light brown to black with light spots on the wings, and the group is notoriously difficult to tell apart. I am reasonably certain, after having compared images from each of the “juvenalis group” of extremely similar “little brown butterflies” on bugguide.net, that this is a Horace’s duskywing, Erynnis…