Today we have more lovely butterfly photos sent in by Pratyaydipta Rudra, a statistician at Oklahoma State University, who notes that “the first twelve are photographed by me and the last two by my wife (Sreemala Das Majumder). She is a Ph.D. student in Environmental Sciences at Oklahoma State University.” The pair has a bird-and-butterfly photo site called Wingmates. Pratyay’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
We have photographed many butterflies over the last couple of years, so I wanted to share on more batch of them – this time some larger ones from the family Papilionidae that are all commonly known as swallowtails.
Giant Swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes), our largest butterfly species. The flower is of Tall Thistle (Cirsium altissimum), which is native in our region:
Black Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes) on wild coneflower (I believe Echinacea pallida) and looking like a fancy kite! These are probably the most common breeding Swallowtails in our area. We had many caterpillars on our fennel this year:
Pipevine Swallowtail (Battus philenor) – Gotta love these with all the beautiful iridescence. They are relatively easy to invite into your area if you have pipevine on your property. They avoid predators by being poisonous/distasteful:
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus), a common migrant:
This one is also an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus), but it is a dark morph female. While males are always yellow, females have two morphs – yellow and dark. It is thought that by being dark, they benefit from mimicking the distasteful Pipevine Swallowtail (Battus philenor). This is true for some other species such as Spicebush Swallowtail (Papilio troilus), Black Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes), Red-spotted Purple (Limenitis arthemis) etc.:
Spicebush Swallowtail (Papilio troilus), which looks quite similar to a Black Swallowtail:
Dorsal side of the Giant Swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes):
This one is not from Oklahoma. These two Palamedes Swallowtails (Papilio Palamedes) chasing each other in the swamps of North Carolina:
Zebra Swallowtail (Eurytides marcellus), another Eastern species. Love their long tails!:
I think this image captures all the common Western swallowtail species. The one coming in and the one in front at the right are both Two-tailed Swallowtails (Papilio multicaudata). One on the left is definitely a Pale Swallowtail (Papilio eurymedon), and I think the one behind the right Two-tailed is a Western Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio rutulus), but please correct me if I am wrong. All of these congregated in this rocky area to get the necessary nutrients on a sunny day in the Rocky Mountains, of Colorado:
Another Two-tailed in flight and some others from the same area:
A black-on-black image of a Black Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes) hovering over garden phlox:
These last two photos are by Sreemala:
Symmetry! Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) coming in:
Yet another photo of a Giant Swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes) from our garden:
Spectacular! Thank you for sending these in.
These are some of the best butterfly pictures I have ever seen. Incredible heartfelt work. Thanks for sharing these with us. It is a great privilege to see them.
The members of a technical macro photography forum, photomacrography.org, would really enjoy seeing them. I hope you would join it. Regular contributor Mark Sturtevant and I are also there. It is a great opportunity to learn and, in your case, to teach.
I was thinking the same thing! 👍
Thank you both. I will definitely check the forum out.
Gorgeous, technically expert, and artistic as well!
Capturing butterflies in flight is not at all easy. I very much appreciate that you evidently stopped down to keep the plants in focus. 🙂
You are right. The main reason to stop down was to make sure the moving butterflies don’t go out of focus, but as a bye-product, the plants also stay in focus. Thank you!
These look like paintings – so lovely. They must have required so much patience!
A beautiful delight of photos!
Very well done! I gotta figure out how to freeze butterflies in flight. You make it look easy, but I know it isn’t.
These are excellent, thank you.
And how cool it must be to have a spouse with the same hobby!
best,
D.A.
NYC
I am lucky indeed. Thank you!
Thank you so much for these absolutely gorgeous photos! They are works of art.
Ah – gorgeous! Exquisite!
Beautiful! What a wonderful hobby. There are enough butterflies to last a lifetime. Your wife takes beautiful pictures! (You do, too!)
In the bleak midwinter it is wonderful to see your beautiful photos!
Thank you both for these outstanding photos, which are among the best I’ve ever seen.
I just love these.
Absolutely stunning photos of lovely butterflies, thank you for sharing with us!
Thank you so much everyone for the kind words (also, on behalf of Sreemala).
Just incredible, as others have said! I hope (and will optimistically assume) these mean your area still has a vibrant butterfly fauna.
Wow, incredible!
Incredibly beautiful photos, and I so love swallowtails. They have become very rare in Germany, or at least where I live, the last one I saw was 50 years ago. Your photography skills make me kneel.