Butterflies and Moths

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Any other fans of lepidoptera here? I'm curious to see what butterflies and moths you have where you are (with or without pictures.) It varies a lot from place to place- I grew up just a hundred miles south of where I am now, and there's a different mix of common species up here.

I saw this Speckled Wood butterfly recently. They're about 5cm across, and apparently live on the "honeydew" that aphids squirt out.

...and here's a slightly more schmancy Red Admiral.

Butterflies are beautifull, but i think that a butterfly dont know about himself/herself dat he/she is beautifull.
Although a butterfly is beautifull i shoud not be a butterfly, a very short life, and a very dangerous life.

Some video's i did make in recent years.

When I lived in town I “raised” butterflies in the screened lanai. I raised mostly zebra longwings because they have a longer lifespan measured in weeks instead of hours. They also just flutter slowly, rather than soaring like the swallowtails do.

They were easy to “catch”. I just had native passionflower vines growing up the screen. The outside butterflies laid their eggs on the passionflower vine, and the caterpillars ate their way in.

BlazingStar should have taken the Mother Nature Doctoral course

^Erewhon - beautifully shot, and nice use of music!

I rescued a swallowtail moth from the bathroom ceiling. It was pretty docile, so I was able to take a picture.

What did the caterpillar say when it first saw a butterfly?

I planted senna sp with the intention of luring in the class of Sulphur butterflies. The plants are now large. I don’t get a lot of sulphurs but small numbers of these cheery yellow butterflies show up fairly regularly.

When I was young, my mother planted heather to attract bees and butterflies. We always had a bumper crop of Red Admirals as a result. I've come to realise that she's always been ahead of the times regarding garden wildlife. She also created a dedicated frog pond, and has the most tolerant attitude towards snails of any gardener I've ever met.

Seeing how vicious my pet caterpillar was and how he was able to defend itself, I can understand why he would be fearful of having wings. It renders him huge, wind controlled, spikeless and defenseless.

YES! I'm a naturalist/nature photographer, and I'm fascinated by Lepidoptera. I've been doing a lot of mothing this year. It's very hard to choose favorites, but the Sphingidae I've been seeing have been impressive this year! I will post some photos here later if you would like!!

You can view some of my observations here:
Flown's iNaturalist Lep Observations

Flown, I would love to see your photos!

Today I am happy because I saw a well developed caterpillar on the senna. Not sure which kind of sulfur butterfly it is. There have been several types flying around.

Update: Saw the link in your post Flown. The quantity and quality of your photos are amazing. What resource do you use for identifying all those moths?

Thank you for checking it out! I have better quality images posted over at https://www.jungledragon.com/user/3231/popular as well.

My ID resources are primarily:
-BugGuide https://bugguide.net/node/view/15740
-BAMONA https://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/
-MPG http://mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu/
-iNaturalist itself
-Practice and my own memory

I would love to see the cat!

Hey, flown. Great and interesting photos. Didn’t get through all of them tonight…but am looking forward to more. I’ll post the cat tomorrow.

The photo of the various unidentifiable fungi growing on wood. The thin polypore used to be Polyporus versicolor, but I know they renamed everything since I was in school. The fleshy white gilled shroom is Pleurotus ostreatus. Again, the splitters went at it and there are many more species than when I was in school.

Glad you enjoyed!

I'm not sure what you are referring to? Some of my photos? Or someone else's?
Polyporus versicolor is now Trametes versicolor. It is quite common in my area. I'm quite familiar with both T. versicolor and P. ostreatus. P. pulmonarius is also quite common here (but is paler than P. ostreatus and appears in the summer months).

If this is what you are referring to, I left it "unidentified" as there were multiple species in the photo. I detailed the multiple species in my description:
https://www.jungledragon.com/image/6692 ... ifera.html

"Lower left: Lumpy Bracket (Trametes gibbosa). Top and lower middle: Turkeytail (Trametes versicolor). Bottom right: Lung Oyster (Pleurotus pulmonarius)."