Aug. 22, 2010 - Insects at Dunning Lake
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This is a front view of a Great Spangled Fritillary. Notice that the pattern on the undersides of the wings is different from the pattern on the upper sides in the previous photo. The spots, which are actually silvery in color, look green in this photo because of the reflection from the grass below.
If you’ve seen a small, white butterfly fluttering from flower to flower, it might well have been a Cabbage White. Accidently introduced near Montreal in the 1860s, they are now found over all of North America. They are considered an agricultural pest because the caterpillars do eat cabbage and other related plants. This one has two black dots on the upper side of each forewing; that identifies it as a female. A male would only have one black dot. You can also get a good look at the proboscis being used to sip nectar from the Daisy.
This damselfly is a male Eastern Forktail. He has eyes that are green below and black above with small green spots on the top. His thorax is also green below and black above and has green stripes on the top. The tip of his abdomen is blue. They can be found from the Atlantic Coast to the Midwest and from north of Florida to southern Canada.
earlorfphotos
on August 22, 2010Hi Shawn, All the field guides that I looked at show them as black with the exception of the Peterson Guide which shows it as brown. That is an illustration, however, not a photo. When I looked up White Admiral on BugGuide.net most of the photos show these butterflies as being black but it does show several photos of brown individuals. These seemed to be pretty well worn. So, I can't find anything definite about the color difference but it does seem like some can be brown. The other possibility is that the underside of the wings is brown with a white stripe. Were you seeing the underside of the wings?
Shawn
on August 22, 2010I didn't realize we had an invasive butterfly problem!
Say, I saw a bunch of White Admirals on a trail yesterday and noticed that a few of them were actually brown in the areas where the Admiral in your photo is nearly black. Do you know if that brown color indicates age or sex?