This is an Anaphaeis aurota.
Here are 2 butterflies I saaw this morning
I'm not sure if this is the same one as the black area is solid....I couldn't find one like this on the "Oz' Insect World" site. Kennedyh, can you lend me a hand with this one please? :-)
-Julie
I've certainly no idea either Juls .. but gracious, they are certainly mitey pretty!! It's got me curious now, as to whether the solid filled black, near the end of the wing .. and the opposite effect on the other one - jes may indicate the gender difference .. within that particular butterfly. It sure does seem they look a bit too much alike, otherwise ...
I'm gonna watch too .. to see what ken or any others may come up with for an ID ...
- Magpye
Magpye, I thought about that too before I checked the website. But even there it shows the female with at least SOME white within the black. http://www.nature-of-oz.com/pieridae1.htm On that link, if you scroll down to my butterfly, #1 and the bottom butterfly in the left hand column of that table are females. You can see that although they have more black than the males, they still have clear white spots. I suppose my butterfly above is a female with just more black than normal????
-Julie
Here's another pretty butterfly I saw today. Unfortunately, this one had a less than happy story. Apparently the wind blew him/her right onto a thorn bush and impaled him/her enough that s/he couldn't get free. Who knows how long the butterfly was hanging there....and therefore without a way to eat. I gently detached the butterfly from the thorn and set it down on the ledge of the raised bed to take a pic. The thorn in the pic is from the same bush that the butterfly got impaled on. The butterfly couldn't fly away and fluttered about pitifully on the ground. I picked it up gently again and placed it on a a flower head that I know those butterflies like to eat at. Hopefully s/he was just hungry and recovered after it was able to get some nectar.
and another male Anaphaeis aurota
Julie, I am sure that your second picture is another Anaphaeis aurota. Although very nearly solid black, the markings still have the same pattern as the web sites show and you can see some faint white streaks across the black wing tips.
The other butterfly that you rescued from the thorn is Madais fausta, which despite is colour is also in the family of the Whites, the Pieridae
Kennedyh, I KNEW you'd come to MY rescue! Thank you so much for your input!
I hadn't even tried to ID the orange butterfly yet, so I had no clue it was in the same family. Wow! There are a few others listed on the Oz site that aren't all white either, but they tend towards white. This one has no white at all! LOL Oh well, there are exceptions to every rule ;-)
-Julie
Juls ..
* I'm gonna edit this reply * .. to save 'face' (or my hind-end one)! .. LOL ..
See, Juls .. I twernt too far off with foretellin' my future!! (LOL) . .
Ref: " ...... And, certainly won't be the last'un either!! .. hee hee .. "
..... And, indeed, it wasn't the last !!! .. LOL
My apologies offered, Juls ..
Doggonit, maybe I need bi-focals afterall !!
- Magpye
This message was edited Nov 21, 2004 5:47 PM
Magpye, he replied to me about both actually :-). The one you and I were talking about he said is indeed the same as the other white butterfly. Then he went on to say that the orange oen I rescued is also in the "whites" family.
-Julie
Julie, the Lycaenidae family of butterflies is frequently referred to as the Blues, but I think there are more in that family that are not blue. It includes all the Hairstreaks and Coppers as well as the blues. The Pieridae, the Whites that your butterflies both belong to does have a lot of predominately white butteflies, but in Europe and USA it also contains a lot of yellow butterflies. The Brimstone butterfly in England and all the different Sulphurs in USA and no doubt a lot more that I am not familiar with.
Juls .. * please see the Edited text above * ... (post entered: Nov 21, 2004 @ 3:53 PM .. Edit)
hee .. I want you to be sure to see my 'goofology-apology' .. above!! ...
- Magpye
You are so silly. What the heck are you apologizing for? You were trying to help me! Silly! :-)
-Julie
They are beautiful! I love seeing the different ones that you have there. Are Paper Kites in that White family? One of the pictures looks like a Paper Kite I saw at an exhibit. Do you have Monarchs??
Thank you konkreteblond! :-)
No we don't have Monarchs. Although I think they have somehow found a way to Australia (island hopping no doubt), they aren't here. There is such a thing as an African Monarch, but I don't think we have that here. I could be completely wrong though. I've never seen any butterfly here that is larger than 2 inches across when the wings are fully spread. I know there ARE such larger butterflies, but not in my area apparently.
-Julie
The Paper Kite or Rice Paper butterfly Idea leuconoe is not a white, it is in the family Nymphalidae, with all the fritillaries, painted ladies, admirals and commas. Here is a picture http://www.cirrusimage.com/butterfly_paper_kite.htm
which shows that it does have a lot of white and black like many of the whites
Wow kennedyh, that could be my Anaphaeis aurota's cousin! It looks SO very similar (and it's very pretty!). So what the heck makes 'em different from the whites and so similar to those in the Nymph family?
-Julie
I forgot how beautiful they were. Thanks for answering my question kennedyh. I could have just looked in my book but it seems so easy for you. ;) I need to go thru my pics from the exhibit I went to and refresh my memory. I loved the Blue Morpho's!
konkreteblonde your reference to the Paper Kite has led me tocorrect a misidentification of an old picture. I found the Paper Kite on the web and thought I recognised its Latin name. I looked up my index and found that I had a picture identified as that species, but with a ? after it.
I looked out my picture and found that it most certainly was not the Paper Kite, so I set about trying to find its true identity and found that I had actually photographed a Malachite Siproeta stelenes
That picture was taken in the butterfly house at a little Botanic Garden near Niagara Falls.
You then added a comment at how you loved the Blue Morpho's! The Blue Morpho was another butterfly that I photographed at Niagara, so I have put together a little thread with the four butterflies that I photographed that day.
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/470339/
Glad I could be of assistance. ;) Thanks for sharing your pics. I do love my Black Swallowtails, but it is nice to see other colors. (I have Queen cats now and can't wait to see them!)