Lepidoptera
awild | September 19, 2009
It's been ages since I hatched out monarch butterflies. But old habits die hard, and we've been raising a monarch caterpillar on our kitchen counter for the past few weeks.
This morning the orange and black product of our labors crawled from his chrysalis, inflated his wings, and flew off to an uncertain future.
photo details: Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens on a Canon EOS 50D
ISO 125, f/2.8 1/160 sec, ambient light
grrlscientist | April 6, 2009tags: Circus of the Spineless, invertebrates, insects, arachnids, plants, algae, blog carnival
Welcome to Circus of the Spineless! This is the migratory blog carnival that specializes in all things spineless, and the contributions that you'll find here range from essays and photoessays, to photographs with some accompanying explanatory text and even a few videos. This blog carnival has seen some scary times in its recent past where it almost went extinct, but thanks to some friends of mine who are much more expert in spineless things, it was revived after I made a bunch of noise about…
awild | February 7, 2009
Formica francoeuri tending larvae of the copper butterfly, Lycaena xanthoides. Southern California
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 20D
ISO 100, 1/250 sec, f/13, flash diffused through tracing paper
awild | May 19, 2008
Lycaena xanthoides - Great Copper
California
A butterfly larva peeks through a hole it has eaten in its Rumex host plant.
grrlscientist | March 30, 2008tags: Lepidoptera, photography, subway art, AMNH, NYC, NYCLife
A Zebra Swallowtail, Eurytides marcellus,
as portrayed in tiles on the walls of the West 77th street entrance to the NYC subway stop (A-B-C)
at 81st and Central Park West. (ISO, no zoom, no flash).
Image: GrrlScientist 2008. [wallpaper size].
Read more about the AMNH tile artworks and see the AMNH tile artworks photographic archives -- with all the animals identified.
grrlscientist | December 13, 2007tags: blood droplet moth, Zygaena carniolica, Lepidoptera, Image of the Day
This red dotted animal was elected Insect of the Year 2007 by scientists at the Federal Biological Research Center for Agriculture and Forestry, Germany. Due to its markings, the moth is commonly known as "blood droplet", although its species name is Zygaena carniolica.
Image: BBC News [larger view].
grrlscientist | October 27, 2007tags: moth, Ecpantheria scribonia, giant leopard moth, Image of the Day
During the process of splitting and transferring wood from the woodpile yesterday, we discovered a large (2.5" long) hairy caterpillar. I have enclosed two pictures of it [the second is below the fold]; it is the larval stage of the Giant Leopard Moth, Ecpantheria scribonia. The life cycle is described and the adult is pictured here.
Image: Dave Rintoul [wallpaper size]
Image: Dave Rintoul, KSU [wallpaper size]
grrlscientist | October 26, 2007tags: moth, Melanchroia chepise, white-tipped black geometrid, Image of the Day
This diurnal Melanchroia chepise posed prettily this morning (10/21/07) on the wall of my apartment breezeway in the Heights section of Houston, Texas.
Image: Biosparite [larger view]
grrlscientist | September 27, 2007tags: lepidoptera, moths, Melanchroia chephise, White-Tipped Black Geometrid, Image of the Day
White-Tipped Black Geometrid, Melanchroia chephise, Houston, Texas.
A diurnal moth, this one was photographed on the Katy Prairie NABA Butterfly Count about 30 miles NW of downtown Houston, Texas, on September 3, 2007.
Image: Biosparite [larger view].
This is a White-tipped Black Geometrid, Melanchroia chephise, although it resembles some of the wasp mimics in the Tiger Moth Family. [read more about it]