Mystery small butterfly posing on Cilantro

This is one of several small butterflies in my yard. They are around all day long. They are slow flyers and don't zig zag very much. They feed on Plumbago, Lantana, Coral Bush, Wild Coffee, Shepherd's Needles, and now, Cilantro.
The butterflies wing colors in person are much darker blue than the picture shows. This is the first shot I have been able to get close to the butterfly. The Cilantro it was on is in shade this time of day, so it might not have been warmed up yet. I do on occasion see other butterflies that appear to be resting in a night blooming jasmine bush about 5 feet away from this grouping. This area is darker than most of the area's in my yard due to it being behind a five foot wall. On the other side of the wall is a 40' egg fruit tree, which also contributes to the shade. The wall also helps block the Easterly breeze which at times, can be very strong.
Any help or idea's with this butterfly would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Art
I forgot to mention the wingspan of this butterfly is less than 1".

This message was edited Jun 16, 2005 8:30 PM

Whatever it is is just beautiful! We just don't have the "blue's" here like in FL. :(

Art, have you registered with bugguide.net? I think you can post and upload photos for id if you are.

John

Yeah, it is kind of nice. In fact most of the smaller butterflies I have seen here are really very attractive. This butterfly acts different than most of the other small ones. It's very slow and deliberate in it's flight. You can actually see it's color and wing tips as it flutters by. It's flight is similar in nature to the easy going flight of the zebra longwings. There is one other thing I noticed about it. When it lands, it keeps opening and closing it's wings all the time, even as it moves along on a leaf or branch it keeps moving it's wings.
I will try bugguide for an id. I use the site often, but don't remember registering.
Thanks
Art

I did a little while ago. Its an easy process.

I think you will find that this one is a moth rather than a butterfly, but I have not been able to get any closer than that to identifying it.

Your unidentified "butterfly" is the White-Tipped Black moth, Melanchroia chephise, a day-flying moth whose larvae have infested my Jacob's Coat (a.k.a. Snow On The Mountain) to the point that every leaf has been devoured.
As far as I know, the cats don't eat anything else so unless you have Jacob's Coat or Snow On The Mountain, you are safe. I had to cut mine back to the ground. I was left with bare sticks and literally hundreds of starving cats. I am entering a small pic of one of the moths nectaring on a small Fiddlewood tree (bush).

But Art's butterfly/moth looks blue...?

Yeah, wassup with that?

Oh, I think maybe it's this other one...

http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/517186/

Or maybe not...?

Ed id'ed them as being the same species. Still doesn't explain the "blue." We wait.....

Well folks, it looks like the mystery is solved. My thanks to edfinney.
In my picture in this post above, the butterfly (moth) looks blue. I noted in the post, it's a much darker blue than the picture shows. I still can't figure out why the camera changes colors when it is taking close-up shots.
The link KKB posted is another shot of mine when I caught the moth against a stucco wall. That picture was taken further away from the moth so it showed it's "true colors" but not much other detail.
The clincher is the Jacob's Coat, or Snow on the Mountain. I have several groupings of these. They are my wife's favorite bushes. All get stripped bare by the small but plantiful cats of these moths. However they don't all get hit at once. It seems they start laying eggs on the Snow on the Mountain that is most West in the yard. Then they move toward the East, devouring each grouping along the way. By the time they have finished the Eastern most group the bushes to the West are back in foliage. Fortunately these bushes come back very quickly. I have had them on the property since day one, over 14 years ago when we brought over cuttings from the bushes around my wife's old yard..
The moth itself is nice to have around. It is not shy. It will fly right up to you giving you a nice view of itself. It flutters by very slow and easy, just like the Zebra Longwings. They are never in a hurry.
Which reminds me, it's just about time for the Polka Dot Wasp Moths to show up in numbers. These are another cool looking, slow flying, show off moth. My Oleander is just about to bloom. When it blooms, there will be lots of these moths in the yard.
Thanks for your comments.
Art

If you watch the infested Jacob's coat shrubs, you will probably notice wasps carrying off the very young cats. I kept noticing two kinds of wasps crawling over the leaves as if they were hunting for something. And on one occasion noticed a wasp launching itself into flight with a tiny cat in its mouth. If you can catch them in Macro, the wasp against the mottled pink and white and green of the Snow shrub makes a nice picture. The cats themselves are not all that attractive IMHO.

The blue is explained! A lesson learned about color rendition and digicams. Thanks for that. :-)

I don't have many wasps that hang out in the yard. Lots of bees, but few wasps.
It would be good if something is benefiting from all the cats. The ants don't go near them.
The light pink top of the Snow on the Mountain is the first to go here. It's ususally gone in less than a day. A full plant or two takes about two to three days to be completely defoliated. My plants don't have the rich pink color nursery grown plants do. I started these from a hedge around my wife's previous house before we moved in here well over 14 years ago. My biggest bush is only about 2' out of the ground. I don't spray so there is not much chance they will get much bigger. They have been this size for years now.
What I find amazing is the quantity of cats these little moths make.
Art

Hi Art,

You mentioned the Polka Dot Wasp Moth. We don't have those in Louisiana, but we do have one of their close relatives, the Scarlet Bodied Wasp moth. These are also very slow flyers, and quite impressive in person. They have an almost completely red body, with neon blue dots on their rear ends! I got a good pic of one last summer (see below). I think these are also found in Florida. The host plant is a weed called Climbing Hemp weed (not related to marijuana), which grows wild in my area in roadside drainage canals.

Mark

Oh my, I love that red!! wow!

Mark and Ed are going to be great assets to this forum! Paige and Art already are. Maybe I will learn something.

Great looking moth! I just love good looking pictures like that, no matter what the subject matter is. Thanks for sharing with us.
Art

Mark, that is OUTSTANDING! Lovely lovely photo and a jaw droppingly cool moth too! Thanks so much for sharing that pic with us! :-)

-Julie

Yes! We do have Cosmosoma myrodora a.k.a. The Scarlet Bodied Wasp Moth here also. I saw lots of them in my yard during April and May but haven't seen any in a while now. Their courtship rituals are at least as interesting as their appearance--really one for the books!! Take a look at this URL if your are interested.

http://www.wfu.edu/wfunews/2000/121200a.htm

The URL below has a movie showing the explosive release of a protective cloud of poison gas prior to mating. You have to be at least 12 in order to watch this one. ;-)

http://www.killerplants.com/renfields-garden/20020828.asp

That photo and the links are so cool!

I like the second picture better because of the way the transparent wings show. I checked to see if it's here in Broward County. So far none have been reported. I guess there is no homegrown here...(joke)
Those links are great Ed.
I have a picture I took today I am posting in the identification forum and thought I might post it here first to give you guys & gals a wack at it.
It didn't rain today allowing me to get out and do some serious exploring looking for chrysalis of anything. Didn't find anything. Under one bush I took the following picture. I have seen these things before here, only when I saw them previously they were hardened shells. This shot shows them (white) when they first start? (growing) there are three white one's in the lower front. Then they turn into the brownish prickley looking things just above the three white one's. Then they turn into greyish light blue 1/2 shells filled with? (seeds.) The one's I have previously observed are hard and have dried out with a thin shell that crushes easily in your fingers. They are usually on wood or wood chips, as they are in the photo. They look similar to barnacles you might see on a deserted boat bottom. I only see them in places that are out of the sun. This photo shows them under a bush in deep shade. They are about 1/4 inch in diameter. I have seen lots of them around the yard. I am thinking they are some kind of fungi due to them always appearing on wood.
Any ideas?
Art

I just thought of something else on those thingies above. The bush they were under is in my "gifts from above" area. That is under overhead utility lines. I get lots of free plants from the bird droppings under these lines. Could they have anything to do with bird droppings. As I was writing that just a moment ago I hapened to thing where I see these things. It seems it's always near the base of a wood fence where a bird might have dropped from, or under a palm frond where birds hang out, etc.
Art

Art, what you have is one of the Birds Nest Fungi perhaps Cyathus stercoreus http://home.att.net/~larvalbugbio/birdsnestfungi.html
or Cyathus striatus http://www.hiltonpond.org/ThisWeek011001.html
Ken

Great links! Thanks for sharing those!

I'd never have thought those were fungi. I'd have thought they were seed cases or something along the lines of acorn "hats". Thanks for educating us so early in the morning Ken (well, it's morning for me still LOL).

-Julie

Thanks Ken! That was a quick ID. After five weeks of rain every day, I have all kinds of fungi scattered all around the yard.

Thankfully yesterday the rain didn't begin until after dinner. I had a good day trimming the bushes and mowing the grass. I even had enough time to lay down my summer feeding of fertilizer on the bushes and flowers.

A side note, with all the rain we have been getting, from the last week of May through this coming weekend (rain every day) the hurricane predictors have lowered their estimate of the number of storms we can expect this hurricane season. They did note although there would be fewer storms and hits on Florida there could be more of these storms winding up in the Gulf of Mexico instead.
Art