Category: lepidopterans

Readers’ wildlife photos

December 22, 2025 • 8:30 am

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:

Readers’ wildlife photos

December 12, 2025 • 8:15 am

Send ’em in, please, or we’ll be empty over the holiday season.

Today’s photos of butterflies come from Pratyaydipta Rudra, a statistics professor at Oklahoma State University. Pratyay’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. Pratyay and his wife Sreemala have a big bird-and-butterfly website called Wingmates.

Here are various other butterflies photographed in Oklahoma, most of them at our backyard.

Gulf Fritillary (Dione vanillae) eyeing a flower to land on, but it was already occupied by a skipper:

Variegated Fritillary (Euptoieta claudia) taking off from a cosmos:

Common Buckeye (Junonia coenia) on cosmos. These plants are hardy and attract many pollinators:

Another commoner in our area – American Lady (Vanessa virginiensis):

Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui), looks very similar to the American Lady, but one can spot the difference if they look carefully. They have the widest distribution of any butterfly, found on all continents except Antarctica and Australia:

Another Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) on our cosmos. Mid-day harsh light is terrible for bird photography, but it can be worked around when photographing butterflies. In fact, I quite like the glow that comes from the sun hitting the butterflies from directly above:

Closeup of a Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui). They have a long “nose” (actually, elongated mouthpart), but can’t beat the American Snout (Libytheana carinenta) in this regard:

The next two images are for the readers to guess which one is an American Lady and which is a Painted Lady. Can you tell what this one is?:

What kind of Lady is this?:

Monarch (Danaus plexippus):

Viceroys (Limenitis archippus) look similar to Monarch, but they are smaller and have a black line across the hindwing that the Monarch doesn’t. They were thought to be a Batesian mimic of Monarch for a long time, but are now considered a Mullerian mimic where both species are unappealing to predators and evolve similar appearances, reinforcing predators’ avoidance of either one:

Not all butterflies visit flowers. This Question Mark butterfly (Polygonia interrogationis), for example, only visits flowers when its usual food sources – rotting fruit, plant sap, dung etc., are not easily available:

Tawny Emperors (Asterocampa clyton) have a similar diet:

Hackberry Emperor (Asterocampa celtis), another similar butterfly from the same family. They are quite common in our area:

Northern Pearly-eye (Lethe anthedon). We don’t see this one very often:

Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa), one of the most uniquely beautiful butterflies that we see here:

Readers’ wildlife photos

November 26, 2025 • 8:15 am

Well, these Thanksgiving photos are the last I have, so if you have others suitable for Readers’ Wildlife, please send them in. Thanks!

Today’s butterfly photos come from reader Martin Riddle. His IDs are below (indented), and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Top to bottom:  Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui), American Lady (Vanessa virginiensis), Great Spangled Fritillary (Speyeria cybele),Yellow Swallowtail (Papilio machaon), and Monarch (Danaus plexippus). All photos are from the resident gardens at Brooksby Village in Peabody, Massachusetts.

Readers’ wildlife photos

November 23, 2025 • 8:50 am

Two kind readers sent photos yesterday, so we’re good until Tuesday.  If you’re off work for the Thanksgiving week, why not collect some of your good wildlife photos (if you have them) and send them in?Thanks!

Today we have some lovely butterfly pics from Pratyaydipta Rudra, a professor of statistics at Oklahoma State.  Pratyay’s captions and descriptions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them. (I just found out that he and his wife share a photo website called “Wingmates“).

When birding gets slow during the summer, we often pay closer attention to the insects, especially the pollinators that are quite abundant during the hotter months. Our garden (as well as some local botanical gardens and farms) has plenty of native species that attract a variety of pollinators including butterflies and moths. Below are some butterfly images that I took earlier this year.

Gulf Fritillaries (Dione vanillae) on our Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata). This plant attracts a huge number of pollinators over the summer, and it is also one of the host plants of Monarch butterflies:

Monarch (Danaus plexippus), caught in flight with an interesting morning lighting:

Variegated Fritillary (Euptoieta claudia) on Indian heliotrope (Heliotropium indicum). This plant is not native to North America, but it is quite widespread in our area, and the flowers are pretty:

Gulf Fritillary (Dione vanillae) coming in for landing on a zinnia. Flight photography of butterflies is way more difficult than birds-in-flight photography, but possible with modern cameras and a lot of patience:

The larval stage of Gulf Fritillary (Dione vanillae), on a purple passionflower (Passiflora incarnata) plant, the host plant for them:

Two generations… This adult Gulf Fritillary (Dione vanillae) might be quite worn, but she stopped by to lay eggs, perhaps one last time, as one of the caterpillars from the next generation keeps munching on the leaves:

Great Spangled Fritillary (Speyeria cybele) on Garden Phlox (Phlox paniculata). A relatively uncommon fritillary for us in this part of the state. In fact, it’s the first time I found one in our county:

Diana Fritillary (Speyeria diana) and Monarch (Danaus plexippus). This is one of my most favorite images from this summer. This was also my first encounter with a Diana Fritillary. This male Diana was nectaring on the Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) when the Monarch flew in. Mr Fritillary wasn’t happy at all:

There was some kickboxing that took place at this point and there was a clear winner…:

The fritillary was able to hold ground, and the Monarch took off:

American Snout (Libytheana carinenta). Not difficult to see why it is named that way. It’s always fun to find one of these little ones with the long “nose”!:

Eastern Tailed Blue (Cupido comyntas). These so-called tails are parts of their wing which they keep moving. This is theorized to be useful to fool the predators into thinking that these are their antennae. Many butterflies actually have several traits like this that give a “false head” impression. We present a Gray Hairstreak in the second image which has a similar false head:

A recent study found that these traits have evolved in a correlated manner, likely driven by a common selective pressure helping them to develop complex head-like structures on their posterior side.

Gray Hairstreak (Strymon melinus) – Another common butterfly in our area that has a similar “tail”:

Pearl Crescent (Phyciodes tharos) – A common butterfly, especially during the fall migration. For those of you who are interested in photography, this image was taken at ISO 256000 (by mistake), but the modern noise reduction programs are unbelievably capable of removing such noise due to low exposure:

Phaon Crescent (Phyciodes phaon). This one is relatively uncommon here. I was glad to find several this year:

The crescents are quite small, and Phaon Crescent (Phyciodes phaon) is typically smaller than the more common Pearl Crescent. Here is an image that has my two-year-old daughter’s finger as a reference. I am glad to have this new butterfly-watcher in our camp!:

Readers’ wildlife photos

November 10, 2025 • 9:12 am

Today we have a contribution of miscellaneous flora and fauna from reader David Riddell, a Kiwi.  His descriptions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Recently I sent in some pictures of seabirds to be posted here, several of them taken on a trip to New Zealand’s Chatham Islands. I thought I’d add a few more images from that trip, starting with this group of Pitt Island shags (Phalacrocorax featherstoni).  These are endemic to the Chathams – one of two species found only there, and one of 13 New Zealand cormorant species, which are generally all referred to as shags in this country.  There are fewer than 500 pairs of both Chatham species, and their numbers appear to be declining.  Unfortunately these are not in breeding plumage, when they look a lot more handsome:

Shore plovers (Charadrius novaeseelandiae) were wiped off the New Zealand mainland by exotic mammalian predators by the 1870s, and for more than a century existed only on Rangatira Island, which lies just off Pitt Island in the Chathams. Small populations have now been re-established on a couple of predator-free islands off the New Zealand mainland, as well as another island in the Chathams group, but the global population is still below 200.  Intensive predator control on Pitt (where a few feral cats persist) has recently allowed the odd pair to breed there, which is where we saw this one, along with a recently fledged juvenile:

In the 1970s there were only about 50 Chatham Island oystercatchers (Haematopus chathamensis). With management there are now over 300, but they are still the world’s rarest oystercatcher.  These were on Pitt, very close to the shore plover above:

Back on main Chatham, the parea, or Chatham Island pigeon (Hemiphaga chathamensis) has benefited from predator control which has seen its numbers rise from a low of about 45 birds in 1989 to an estimated population of more than 600. They are larger and greyer than the New Zealand pigeon, or kereru (Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae), with a stouter, more brightly coloured bill:

For comparison, this is a kereru, which are reasonably common and widespread on the New Zealand mainland:

Not the most photogenic of creatures perhaps, but this is a chick of one of the world’s rarest seabirds, the Chatham Island taiko, or Magenta petrel (Pterodroma magentae). First described from a bird collected in 1867 by the Italian research vessel Magenta it was tentatively identified in the 20th century with the taiko, which was believed to be extinct.  The identity was confirmed in 1978 when ornithologist David Crockett found live birds in the southwest of Chatham Island.  About 20 breeding burrows are currently known, many with observation hatches like this one, and mostly within a predator-fenced reserve.  The total population is probably fewer than 200, though slowly increasing:

The Chathams only have one lizard species, the Chatham Island skink (Oligosoma nigriplantare). It’s extinct on the main island, but is still common on Pitt and the outlying islands:

The Chatham Island red admiral (Vanessa gonerilla ida) is an endemic subspecies which is notably common throughout the islands:

The Chatham Islands’ plants also show a high degree of endemism. This is a rautini (Brachyglottis huntii), sometimes called the Chatham Island Christmas tree as it flowers conspicuously in the height of the southern hemisphere summer.  This one is a bit past its best in March:

The Chatham Island geranium (Geranium traversii) is a pretty little flower sometimes grown in rock gardens on the mainland:

There was an attempt to establish a business farming emus (Dromaius novaehollandiae) in New Zealand late last century, but it never became a significant industry, though a few of the big birds remain here and there, mostly in small flocks (herds?) on lifestyle blocks. They’ve gone feral in a few areas, although they are still not officially recognised as part of the local avifauna.  Chatham Island now has dozens roaming wild through central parts of the island; there’s talk of trying to eradicate them, but for now they’re an unexpected addition to the landscape:

Much of Chatham Island is occupied by a huge brackish lagoon, along the shores of which, at a spot called Blind Jim’s Creek, you can find fossilised shark teeth. These are between 30 and 60 million years old; most are mako (Isurus oxyrhynchus, or perhaps an ancestor), but other species, including Otodus megalodon, also occur.  In the background of the picture below there are also some fossilised urchin spines, which are present along with the teeth.  Three of us found this collection in about an hour of searching:

It’s a bit hard to make out, but this is a dendroglyph, markings carved into the bark of a kopi (Corynocarpus laevigatus) tree by the Moriori, who were the original inhabitants of the Chathams. They had one of the world’s only true pacifist societies, and when Maori from New Zealand invaded in 1835 they put up no resistance.  Consequently they were massacred, many of them were eaten (Maori were cannibals), and the rest enslaved.  Within a century the last full-blooded Moriori was dead, though a few people today still claim Moriori ancestry, descended from slaves and their Maori masters.  The dendroglyphs are now at least 190 years old, and very few are left.  We found this one, not signposted and not visible from the track, entirely by chance, in a patch of forest where their presence was not known, or at least not publicised:

Readers’ wildlife photos

June 6, 2025 • 8:15 am
Today’s photos of insects were sent by Marcel van Oijen from Edinburgh, who notes that “these 13 pictures of insects we (my wife Netty and I) saw in Greece last April, one of which I hope you or your other readers can identify! All the photos were taken by Marcel, his captions and IDs are identified, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. 

Insects in northern Greece

Marcel van Oijen & Netty van Dijk

We visited Greece in April 2025, mainly to look for orchids. But beautiful insects kept showing up. All pictures were taken with a Fujifilm X-T5.

The first four pictures are from Delphi. To the east of town are the famous ruins, but just north are mountain meadows with orchids and insects. This is a Clouded Yellow (Colias croceus).

Wall Brown (Lasiommata megera):

I do not know what this spectacular insect is, maybe some wingless cricket species?:

Common Blue (Polyommatus icarus):

The next two pictures are from the busy town of Nafpaktos. If you walk up to the old castle, you find peace and butterflies. This is a Scarce Swallowtail (Iphiclides podalirius):

Old World Swallowtail (Papilio machaon):

The small island in Lake Pamvotida can be visited hourly by boat from Ioannina, the largest city in NW Greece. This is a Long-horned Bee (Eucera longicornis) on a bee orchid (Ophrys sp.):

The next three pictures were taken along the wonderful path through the Aoös gorge from Konitsa to the Stomio monastery. This is a Speckled Bush-cricket nymph (Leptophyes punctatissima) on a bee orchid (Ophrys sp.):

This little guy (Morimus asper funereus) was sitting quietly on the path and allowed me to lie down for a tête-à-tête:

A pair of mating European Firebugs (Pyrrhocoris apterus). They can stay coupled like this for many hours, making it easy to take pictures:

Copper Chafer (Protaetia cuprea) near the famous waterfalls of Edessa:

Male Beautiful Demoiselle damselfly (Calopteryx virgo) among the Roman-era ruins of Dion in Thessaly. The next picture was taken at the same spot:

Female Beautiful Demoiselle damselfly (C. virgo):

Readers’ wildlife photos

May 15, 2025 • 8:15 am

Today we have some lovely insect photos by regular Mark Sturtevant. Mark’s ID’s and captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

Here are more pictures of insects taken two summers ago from area parks near where I live in eastern Michigan.

First up is a slightly embarrassing accomplishment, which is a decent picture of one of our Sulphur butterflies. Sulphurs are an exceedingly common group with several local species, but for some reason they are extremely wary around me. Anyway, this one was unwary, and I think it is the Orange Sulphur (Colias eurytheme):

Next up is our largest butterfly, the Eastern Giant Swallowtail (Heraclides cresphontes). They are often challenging since they tend to keep their “engines running” (meaning their wings are almost always in motion) when rapidly foraging from flower to flower, but this one paused very briefly:

One of my favorite insects is shown next. This is Anotia uhleri, or what I call the “Flat Derbid”, although this Derbid planthopper has no common name. They can be found in forests sitting on the undersides of leaves. The orange thingies sticking out of the head are stumpy antennae:

Here is a Leaf-footed Bug nymph (Acanthocephala terminalis):

I was finding quite a few of these Lacewing egg clusters along a forest trail. Lacewings lay eggs on the ends of long stalks for protection. Having the eggs tied together in a bundle suggests that these are one of our larger Green Lacewing species, Leucochrysa insularis. This species tends to stay in forests, sitting under leaves by day, and like the Derbid above they lay their wings flat.

An occasional visitor to the porchlight at home are Mosquitos of Unusual Size, and one is shown in the next picture. I was eventually able to identify this giant mosquito as the Gallnipper, Psorophora ciliata. This one is a female. Although she will require a blood meal to reproduce, and they are described as being rather aggressive in pursuit of humans, a relatively good thing about them is that the larvae are predatory on other mosquito larvae. I have pictures coming up later that compares one of these beasts to a regular mosquito, but for now the attached picture can give some idea:

The next three pictures show a surprise, but the story starts out unremarkably. The beetles foraging on flower pollen are Brown Blister Beetles, Zonitis vittigera. Blister Beetles are a large family, and are so-named because they are chemically protected by exuding an irritating fluid if annoyed. It is relevant to point out that they have interesting biology in that they grow up as parasites on other insects, usually on bees. The mobile first instar larvae are called triungulin larvae, and they start their journey by clambering up onto flowers and wait for a bee to visit. Once the flower is visited by their intended target, they hitch a ride to the nest where they move in and eat the bee provisions and even bee larvae:

I almost did not bother processing the 2nd picture because it had motion-blur, though the composition was nice. But do you see the tiny things on the thorax of the beetle? The 3rd picture provides a blow-up. Those little things are Blister Beetle triungulin larvae! Possibly not this species, though. So, what is going on? I have sent these pictures on to a Blister Beetle Facebook group and to iNaturalist to ask for opinions. There is no answer yet, but possibly the larvae attach to any insect visitor. Although non-bee visitors would be temporary dead-ends, one can imagine that this would at least disperse them to other flowers:

Finally, here are pictures of our most common Sand Wasp, which is the Four-banded Stink Bug Wasp (Bicyrtes quadrifasciatus). Females of these highly energetic wasps will provision a burrow with paralyzed stink bugs, and these are used to raise the next generation of wasps. In the first picture you can see the spray of sand being flung out as she excavates her burrow: