Sleepy Oranges

Here are a pair of Sleepy Orange Butterflies. One seems to be nectaring on a Wild Teasel (an invasive species, though not usually an especially bad one) while other other was either coming in for a landing -or- maybe checking out a potential romantic partner or rival.

It's not too surprising to me that a native butterfly is drinking nectar from a non-native plant. Nectar is mostly sugary water, so chemically this nectar is probably fine for our pollinators. And if plants that depend on pollinators (plants that don't pollinate through the wind) weren't acceptable to our pollinators, they simply wouldn't survive here.

I'm suspicious that the one on the teasel is a male. If we could see the top view of the wings, the males have a dark border that's sharp while the females have fuzzier dark borders. I think I can see the border through the wing, so I'm assuming that implies the border is pretty sharp. Unfortunately I can't see the borders well at all on the butterfly-in-flight. 

July 14 at Duke Farms


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