Tawny Emperor

A couple weeks ago while talking about a Hackberry Emperor butterfly, I wanted to post a link to my previous post about its relative, the Tawny Emperor. Unfortunately I didn't have one [1], so I'm going to remedy that on Throwback Thursday with a picture from 2.5 years ago.

You probably shouldn't feel all that deprived of seeing the Tawny Emperor; it's quite similar to its Hackberry Emperor cousin. In contrast to the Hackberry Emperors I've seen, the Tawny Emperor's coloring is more of a brownish-orange (aka tawny) compared to the brownish-gray of many Hackberry Emperors. But this isn't the best way to ID them since apparently some Hackberry Emperors have the brighter coloring of the Tawnies; a better way is that if the top of the front wing contains 1-2 eyespots (something I talked about here) then you've got a Hackberry Emperor.

As wee little lads and lasses (aka caterpillars) both these emperors like to eat (surpringly): Hackberry Trees [2]. As adults they rarely frequent flowers, preferring to dine on sap or rotting fruit, so you're likely to see them in woods more than meadows. And both species may be more common than you think since they generally prefer to be up in trees.

Perhaps this was a female since males are described as "pugnacious" and I did not get punched.

August 26, 2020 at Duke Farms
Photo 92211639, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


[1] Technically there was a Tawny Emperor post, but it was with my old Tumblr account that got removed for no apparent reason. To me, Tumblr stands for Terribly Unfair and Mean-spirited BLog Remover.

[2] Hackberries are distant relatives of the elms with warty, cork-like bark.

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