Monday, May 28, 2012

Red Spotted Purple

This one was tough to identify, because it doesn't appear on the Audubon website. It isn't a swallowtail! I had to search elsewhere to figure out that this is one of two forms of Limenitis arthemis. The southern form looks like this. The northern form has a big white band across the wings, and is called a "white admiral". In between the two ranges, they produce offspring with mixed markings. This was photographed on our stinky compost heap. Chris got some nice macro photos that he will post later.

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