All about nursing – Learning & Sharing
The brilliant red and purple color of this butterfly is typical of many tropical butterflies. These lovely creatures drift through the jungles and savannahs of Central and South America like great flying flowers, adding a fairy-like quality to the tropics not found in the colder north. At dung and mud puddles along the roadways you see these butterflies gathering in dozens and even hundreds, risking up in rainbow clouds when you approach.
In the west this lovely butterfly flies in the woods and brush along streams, circling lazily in the sun or dropping down to luxuriously stretch its wings upon a leaf. Try to catch it, however, and it flies off with great speed, dipping up and down in flight or even flinging itself skyward in a great leap that may take it out-of-sight. Often the orange tips of the wings flash in the sunlight in a way that must be confusing to a bird trying to catch the butterfly, for the movement of the wings causes this flashing of color to appear and then disappear.
Up and over, down and up, now you see it an now you don’t, so flashes the Long-tailed Skipper, in an out of the bushes and flowers. But suddenly you see it lighting on a beautiful flower like a thirsty boy or girl lighting on an ice-cream soda. Its whole body quivers with ecstacy as the long tongue sips up the nectar. Now you can catch it while it is so forgetful, though that would be really not sporting!
Continue reading “Long-Tailed Skipper / 长尾弄蝶 (Family Hesperiidae, Skippers)”
This is the only little blue butterfly we have with such bright red spots on the blue wings. This gives this butterfly one of the best disguises against enemies. Watch one of these little blues as it wings its way through a meadow. You see the bright reddish-pink spots on its wings flashing in the sunlight like dots of fire. Then the butterfly lights on a leaf or stem and folds its wings over its back. Even if you actually see this happen it is hard to believe in such a sudden change. Where there was a dashing, brilliantly colored butterfly a moment before, now is only a drab little creature, almost invisible among the plants where it has lit. What an excellent bit of camouflage!
The shining metallic bands of silvery green or blue on the upper side of the wings of the “89” shimmer in the sunlight like mirrors, catching and dazzling the eye so that when the butterfly closes its wings and drops into the shadows it seems to suddenly disappear. It is not a strong flier and is fairly easily caught, particularly when it joins its companions at some wet place on the road or some piece of dung or manure dropped by an animal. Surely nothing so lights up a forest trail through the jungle as to see these scintillating little beauties flashing here an there under your feet. They almost invariably fly close to the ground and seek safety in the undergrowth instead of in swift or high flight.