Lepidoptera Lovers: Butterfly Kisses

[beautress]

Any idea what type it is?

Not a clue. I only know I go ga-ga when I see the amazing flitting of one of the amazing phyla Lepidoptera. *sigh*

I leave the classifications of identifying one of them in a peculiar stage to far better scholars than me. Just consider me a "Lepidopterrorist," 'cause I'd rather fight than switch to adoring far more advanced creatures with fur and fury.

 

[beautress]

Someday I'm going to make a quilt like this one:

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[beautress]

Wish I knew what this critter was, I just pulled him up with "beautiful lepidoptera" in my bing search engine for images. I was enchanted to the point of intoxication, *sigh*…

My guess is he or she could be a moth rather than a butterfly due to the fuzzy-wuzzies on his wing's shoulders.

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[beautress]

I kept on looking for images of that amazing moth, and all I got for info was a lot of what looked like Russianized alphabets, from signs I saw in St. Petersburg when we visited there in 2006 on a cruise of the Baltic Sea, in which we visited 7 other countries between Norway and Russia. It's a whole 'nuther world in the north Atlantic waters. Memories, memories *sigh*

Oh, I just pulled up one listed only as "papillon" How lucky are those who've seen one of these in real life,

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[beautress]

Oh, this butterfly, found in bing, is soooo transparent! It's known as the Octauius Swordtail.

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[beautress]

I finally found the fabulous aqua blue moth's specie name: Iotaphora admirabilis It is found in Siberia, Korea, and Taiwan. What little information in English that I could find was at Wikipedia on this page: Iotaphora admirabilis - Wikipedia

I'll keep looking to see if there are some pictures around in English, so I can understand what is known about them.

The greater majority of this moth in bing images, once I loaded the latin name, 9 to 1 of them were green:

And not this amazing aqua color which attracted me to find them, since it's the color I love so much:

So I don't know if the bottom image is the real deal or photoshopped in color. It doesn't seem to be. Maybe they're the same specie, at different locales, or bimorphism, or same specie, like humans, different skin color. *sigh* I'm just a fool for the blues. Sounds like the name of a good country song. <giggle>

 

[beautress]

Butterfly, beware!

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[yiostheoy]

Butterflies and moths are like the beautiful flowers of the Animal Kingdom. This thread is for sharing photos, facts, and inspirational sightings of any member of the Lepidoptera family.

I'll start with a specie in my favorite color: Lysandra bellargus. (Adonis Blue)

Credits: Kent, UK dot gov
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In the book, A World of Butterflies, text by Brian Cassie, 2004, Chanticleer Press, p. 60. it says: "The Adonis Blue is one of many species of blues that is closely attended by ants during its larval stage. The ants feed on sweet secretions from the larvae's honeydew glands and they provide the immature insects with a measure of protection from predators. Adonis Blue caterpillars, which feed openly during the day, are almost always found in the company of ants. At times the ants even protect them at night by covering them over with a layer of soil."

I have the book in my private library at home. It's a small hardcover that has full-page sized butterfly photographs by photographer Kjell Sandved.

The link died.

 

[yiostheoy]

See a lot of these kind of butterflies around..

Credits to tbone at photobucket.
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I have always especially loved the swallowtails, especially the tiger.

 

[beautress]

I saw another a few days ago. They do not stick around for you to admire them.
Pity party music

Thank goodness for bing images! They make butterflies come and go all the time.

 

[beautress]

I've been seeing a lot of Sulphur butterflies around lately. They're almost neon at this time of year. Last January, I remember seeing an oversized group of sulphurs, but they were tinted a little yellower than these October surprises.

 

[beautress]

This Sulphur is so neon.

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[beautress]

The Giant Sulphurs were out last January all around my house, Freedom Lake, the orchard, the arena, and the northwest pasture. I couldn't figure where all of them came from.

Their size was enormous compared to the itty bitty sulphurs I saw at the butterfly centers I've visited from Florida all the way up to Vancouver Island, Canada.

Here's what I found on bing that is so like the ones I saw for the entire month of January:

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[beautress]

his morning, I just bing'd some "butterflies beautiful," and were they ever!

 

[beautress]

When I was a kid, my Dad got a job one year as a school Principle in a small town in southwestern Texas, and one of the first things he had to do was to teach a science class which the district couldn't quite afford to hire a teacher for science, and he had the right credentials. I sat through his first lecture (since there wasn't another school in the area to send principal's kids to) and it started out something like this: "Science is the study of God's wonderful universe..." When I look at some of the beautiful butterflies that I bing'd in their images, that saying really comes back to me as I see the images of butterflies from all over the world, and the infinite variety of them in pattern, color, and I see them around my small acreage in the country, Walker County Texas, where they're here all year around, except for the bitterest winter days, where they sleep in protective cocoons only to reappear when the thermometer goes to a temperature they survive well in, which makes them seasonal. I noticed last January, the Sulphur butterflies were just everywhere, and they were so large, I looked up sulphurs, and the ones I was seeing may have been "giant sulphurs," whose 5 1/2- inch wingspans ARE gigantic, next to their tiny 1-3 inch wing span brethren and sisterns, also some shade of light Sulphur green to Schoolbus yellows and all yellows in between.

While my husband was alive, we visited a lot of butterfly gardens, just because he liked to see me happy when so fascinated with the animal kingdom himself. The last years of his life, he and I visited the Houston museum of Natural Sciences that housed a wonderful 3- or 4-story glass dome for butterflies that had possibly one of the best environments that housed wonderful butterfly-preferred plants from all over this planet, and lovely warmth enjoyed by some species. I found a great video of the butterflies in there that someone left with credit to the butterfly center there and showing these lovely, peaceful creatures with their lovely, lilting aerial maneuvers in slow motion so viewers could see how spectacular they are. I'm going to post it below. Indeed they are one of the best visions of this wonderful universe the good Lord gave us:

Houston Museum of Natural Sciences Butterfly Center



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[beautress]

Earmark this page for when you have time to be blessed by some more of these videos from Youtube:

10 beauties



Cockrell Butterfly Center at the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences



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[beautress]

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[beautress]

African Butterflies, Part 1 and Part 2--may take half an hour, great screen candy.



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[beautress]

One hour and 8 minutes of soothing music and lovely lepidopteran images, I promise ya.

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[beautress]

The National Geographic folks are saying the Monarch butterfly is experiencing dwindling migration. In my fields, I seem them winging their way around, so when I take the tractor out and mow, I avoid mowing down the milkweeds. When that happens, the following year, the areas I spared quadruplicate the number of milkweeds the following year. If I planted them, they'd likely not come up. God does a much better job than me. Anyways, this is what National Geographic showed in Bing: They are such charming creatures, and if we proliferate the milkweeds, and don't use insecticides, we help them out.

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