northeast-flora-and-fauna

Dogbanes, similar to milkweeds, are considered plentiful sources of nectar, and this Painted Lady was taking full advantage of this. I can distinguish it from its American Lady cousin (from this view) by looking at the 4 small eyespots along the rear of butterfly's wing; 2 large spots would imply an American Lady instead. In flight, I personally can't distinguish between the 2 butterflies at all. This is somewhat unfortunate since I've been seeing one/both of these butterflies a fair amount this spring, but without a lot of flowers they like in bloom they've mostly been flyby sightings. (Sometimes they'll tease me for a while fluttering in my vicinity or even circling me only to fly off either without landing or landing for just a second or 2 while I fumble to spot them with my binoculars.) I'm not sure what flower this butterfly is nectaring from, but it looks like a dogbane . Similar to their milkweed relatives, dogbane is popular with the pollinators for fa...

As with most gender-inspired species names, the names don't actually change with the gender, so this is a male Widow Skimmer and not a Widower Skimmer [1]. These are 1 of my favorite dragonflies : They'll perch so you can get a picture most of the time. The males are very distinctive with wings that are black near the base and (as they get older) with white patches before going translucent near the ends [2]. White pruinose on the abdomen is also frequently present as they get older, though not in the individual below. Though far from a griffinfly , they're big enough to spot if you're looking for this sort of animal. June 13, 2023 at Washington Valley Park Photo 300987064, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) [1] Similarly, male Painted Lady and American Lady butterflies are not called Painted Gentlemen and American Gentlemen. [2] Despite their distinctiveness, I'm pretty sure I originally would confuse them with the Common Whitetail .

We're pretty close to the middle of winter, so maybe you're craving warmer weather; here's another American Lady I met last spring. Normally I'd talk about the difference between them and their slightly more common cousins, the Painted Ladies , but since I did that a couple weeks ago I'll skip it this time. American Lady adults cannot survive New Jersey winters. They can survive the winters in some areas as larvae (caterpillars), though it sounds like it's unclear whether they can survive the New Jersey ones [1]. That means when you see American Ladies in New Jersey: Either they were able to hibernate up here when they were caterpillars, Or they recolonized New Jersey from a warmer southern area. Given I saw this 1 in May, I doubt they would have had a long migration; presumably the wintered as caterpillars fairly close to New Jersey. If they couldn't survive historic New Jersey winters, perhaps they soon will be able to as our winters seem to be getting m...

There are 2 ways to identify the American Lady butterfly from the Painted Lady butterfly, and these pictures illustrate 1 of those ways better than the other: First picture - On the top side of the front wing, you're supposed to be able to be able to see a small white non-ringed spot in the orange of the wing of an American Lady that you won't see on a Painted Lady. (Neither the large white patches on the front wing nor the black-ringed white spot on the hind wing represent this field mark.) In my picture, you can just barely see a white spot on the front wing; it's a little to the left of what looks a little like a Batman symbol. Unfortunately the white spot on this butterfly is faint enough that it would be easy to miss it. Second picture - On the underside of the hind wings you can see 2 large, prominent eyespots , patterns on the wings that resemble (but are not) eyes. Two large eyespots clearly identify this as an American Lady; the Painted Lady would have 4 smalle...

Since I've been showing Great Spangled Fritillaries this week, for Throwback Thursday let's dip into the photography archives to show a cool-looking butterfly from the past, an American Copper  (aka Common Copper). While the name might make you think I'm talking about a member of a US constabulary , the coppers are a subfamily of generally small butterflies. Though one source claimed they are an introduced species, most sources suggest it's more of an international butterfly than an invasive one. Similar to the Red Admiral and Painted Lady , it appears to be native to not just North America but also Eurasia and much of Africa. Though the species may be found across much of the world, its numerous subspecies tend to be more localized. Though it's a fairly colorful butterfly it's easy to overlook due to its diminutive size. If you're familiar with the Spring/Summer Azures , they're approximately that size. When I got my pictures, I wasn't sure what ...

After a midweek Duke Farms program, this American Lady butterfly was spotted near the Orchid Range. I've discussed before how to distinguish this butterfly from its more common Painted Lady cousin. Although smaller and with a different wing pattern than yesterday's Monarch , they might be confused with the Monarch if you see it fluttering across a meadow at a distance. Also similar to Painted Ladies and Monarchs, these butterflies migrate here as the weather warms, so you'll probably never see them really early in the season. And since they lay eggs mostly on flowers in the aster family, you probably need these to be fairly mature (though not necessarily in bloom) before you see American Ladies. May 25, 2022 at Duke Farms Photo 205018075, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Here's another  Red Admiral Butterfly I met. (These guys are fairly common, so you can expect them in more posts.) What's up with the Red Admiral name? It sounds like an antagonist in a Tom Clancy novel, but apparently their name used to be "Red Admirable", and the "admirable" got corrupted into "admiral". Apparently this is also true of other admiral butterflies . This brings up a potentially confusing thing about their name. There is a genus of admiral butterflies (local members including the Red-spotted Admiral and the Viceroy), but the Red Admiral is not in this genus; Red Admirals are actually ladies (like the Painted Lady and American Lady ). When is an admiral not an admiral? When it's a Red Admiral. (Admirals and ladies are both brush-footed butterflies though, so they are sorta related.) You could also ask why this isn't called an Orange Admiral. Well, the Red Admiral is a species native to Eurasia, and probably got named before...