Lepidoptera Lovers: Butterfly Kisses

[Jos]

about the above size
Both are about 12 cm, if you spread your hand out, from thumb to little finger across, I never really counted them before today, I have 97 on my wall plus about the same amount of insects, the largest being a stick insect 12 inches long with another 6 inches of front legs, I bought them during my travels in Malaysia, when I came across a breeding center which mounts them to sell when they die, it pays for the breeding program so many can be released to the wild

 

[freedombecki]

about the above size
Both are about 12 cm, if you spread your hand out, from thumb to little finger across, I never really counted them before today, I have 97 on my wall plus about the same amount of insects, the largest being a stick insect 12 inches long with another 6 inches of front legs, I bought them during my travels in Malaysia, when I came across a breeding center which mounts them to sell when they die, it pays for the breeding program so many can be released to the wild

Wow, Jos. Are you an entomologist or lepidopterist? Not that many people go to Maylaysia and come home with a bevy of huge exotic butterflies and walking sticks.

 

[freedombecki]

I went shopping online today. I'm gonna make a butterfly quilt with machine embroidered cross stitch by the one and only Ms. Giancanna of Vermillion Stitcheries:

Credits

I can't wait till the cd gets here so I can load it into my embroidery machine software and stitch these little beauties out.

 

[mudwhistle]

 

[mudwhistle]

 

[mudwhistle]

 

[freedombecki]

wow, Mudwhistle. This one is a knockout! He's all red white and blue...

 

[freedombecki]

"Rainbow Lepidoptera" Thanks to my Guild sister, JM for snapping this to her iphone and sending it to me to post until I figure out (1) the camera(2) the scanner/printer
I finished it about an hour and a half ago, and it's already in the Charity Bees closet. It's a twin-sized quilt and will go to a child in a shelter for abused families.

​

 

[freedombecki]

Purple by far seems to be the hardest color to track in butterflies. However, today I persevered and found a couple of notable exceptions:

Colorado Hairstreak, Hypaurotis crysalus crysalus

It is a butterfly of Southeastern Arizona and is of the Subfamily Thyclinae, Family of Lycaenidae.

Another purplish butterfly is the Marine Blue, Leptotes marina :

This one, I love: Western tailed blue, Everes amyntula herrii:

Credit for photos is here
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[freedombecki]

Interactive Listing of American Butterflies at Butterflies of America website.

 

[freedombecki]

From NSW, Australia, Hartley Valley has a lovely rare specimen, the purple copper butterfly:

Find more about the butterfly here
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[freedombecki]

Omigoodness, there's a purple emperor butterfly in Australia, also, that I just found here:

They say it's a brown butterfly that in certain light, refracts the color purple. Oh, I'm so impressed with the photographer at the link above.
​

 

[freedombecki]

For some reason, my little hardback, entitled "A World of Butterflies" fell open to page 135, The Bhutan Glory Bhutanitis lidderdalei, and I have been oogling it since yesterday. It has a 4" wingspan or better and sports long wings as you can see below. I have to quote Brian Cassie, the author, because I've never seen this one since it is a native of Bhutan, India, Myanmar, thailand, and southern China, places I've not been. Mr Cassie says:

The Bhutan Swallowtails comprise a group of four very similar-looking and extraordinary species. B. lidderdalei is the most widespread and abundant of the clan but is still a good find in the field. It has a rather weak fluttery flight and is said to be easily buffeted around by mountain breezes. The few observers who have gotten close enough to this butterfly to take a sniff of it say it has a delightful fragrance.

​

The image below has credits here:

Not sure if I can find another site as good as "Tree of Life" organization.
​

 

[freedombecki]

While I was dinking around at TOL (Tree of Life.org), I found a beautifully-shaped Colombian butterfly, visual artistry, Idioneurula erebioides:

Source with credits

Oh, my I'm so fascinated with aesthetically shaped animals, positive and negative spaces that make the artist's eye go nuts. This is one of those fascinating creatures I must know more about. Naturally, I'm a poor Spanish-speaking scholar lately, but it'd be worth a month of study to know more about this magnificent small creature.
​

 

[freedombecki]

Idioneurula donegani
Credits, the Natural History Museum, UK

Idioneurula donegani is mainly found in páramos (high elevation habitats).
Credits for photo: B. Huertes
​

This new species was discovered recently in one of the highest peaks of Colombia’s Serranía de los Yariguíes. To explore these mountains, the Museum’s butterfly curator Blanca Huertas and her team were dropped by helicopter on an isolated peak at 3,000 metres above sea level.
This exploration and many new species discoveries help with the creation of a national park by the Colombian government.

The type specimen of the new species remains in Colombia’s main scientific collections in Instituto Alexander von Humboldt.

• Species detail
• Images

All known species of Idioneurula are rather similar in appearance. They are small-medium sized, plain brown butterflies with a variable number of ocelli on their hind wings. Patterns on the ventral hind wings vary considerably intraspecifically in some species.

All known species of Idioneurula are similar in appearance.

​

Idioneurula species are found mainly in high elevation habitats (páramos) of Colombia and Venezuela, but their complete range is not known due to a lack of collecting initiatives in high elevations in the region (which itself is partially due to historical security concerns).
It is possible that other species in the genus could remain undiscovered (e.g. in the Serranía de Perijá).
Host plants also remain unknown for some species, although Poaceae is the usual host plant of Satyrinae (DeVries, 1987; Ackery 1988; Robinson et al. 2002).
Idioneurula are small to medium sized butterflies with a rather triangular-shaped forewing, plain brown coloured wings, no markings on the dorsal forewing, at least one ocellus on the lower border of the dorsal hindwing, such ocelli generally black with a yellow or orange border and white centre spot, no marked sexual dimorphism high elevation distribution in the East Andes.

• Distribution
  
  
• Etymology
  
  
• Molecular analyses
  
  
• Conservation
  
  ************

Hopefully, this will illustrate how little we know about our own planet until someone parachutes into a remote area of the world seldom explored by dedicated entomologists and other scientists who record their findings as best they can.

 

[freedombecki]

For some reason, my little hardback, entitled "A World of Butterflies" fell open to page 135, The Bhutan Glory Bhutanitis lidderdalei, and I have been oogling it since yesterday. It has a 4" wingspan or better and sports long wings as you can see below. I have to quote Brian Cassie, the author, because I've never seen this one since it is a native of Bhutan, India, Myanmar, thailand, and southern China, places I've not been. Mr Cassie says:

The Bhutan Swallowtails comprise a group of four very similar-looking and extraordinary species. B. lidderdalei is the most widespread and abundant of the clan but is still a good find in the field. It has a rather weak fluttery flight and is said to be easily buffeted around by mountain breezes. The few observers who have gotten close enough to this butterfly to take a sniff of it say it has a delightful fragrance.

​

The image below has credits here:

Not sure if I can find another site as good as "Tree of Life" organization.
​

This post is actually an edit after the fact. Sometimes I see it, sometimes, I don't see the graphic. So there may be two images, same source as above, maybe not. This butterfly is so rare, there are very very few images. Maybe someone else will come along with a clear picture of this creature in his natural environs. If so, thanks ahead of time.

 

[freedombecki]

Oh, yay!!! My new book got here from Amazon.com today: "One Hundred Butterflies," Feinstein. All the illustrations are HUGE!

This is just one pic.
The book is a real piece of eye-candy with this 8" enlarged butterfly on the cover. It has to be the most beautiful book in the entire world. The small tear on the cover was not as large as the seller claimed, and I got it for a song at Amazon. If you are an entomologist, you owe this tome to yourself and loved ones who don't get it why you love the beasties in Phylum Arthropoda. They will when they see this master work of beauty on your desk or table in your den.
Source: Calculating the Beauty of Butterflies
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[freedombecki]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0swiD1SxQwo&feature=player_detailpage"]‪Butterflies!‬‏ - YouTube[/ame]

 

[freedombecki]

Today, I found some great new butterfly and moth links:

This one was recommended by the USGS Butterfly Page as new site for identification of butterflies and moths: Butterflies and Moths of North America | collecting and sharing data about Lepidoptera

 

[freedombecki]

This evening I went scouting around for images of a Luna Moth that are copyright free. The "dotorg" website I visited requests no transfers of their images, so I found others that are "royalty-free" for the price of posting a link back to the website. The one I am adding below is such an image, and it is now on my desktop. Its host if you would like to change wall papers to this huge moth that averages 3-6" in width and can be just as long if not longer than that. I swear I saw the largest moth in the world when I was growing up in a town called Bruni, Texas, which is around forty miles east of Laredo. It was the biggest, most beautiful specie I'd ever seen, and I couldn't believe it was a real butterfly--and it wasn't. It was a moth, of course. Thanks to desktopart.org for the free desktop luna moth. A thumbnail is below.