Butterflies Galore

Today was a day for lab work, spent at the schoolhouse. This meant that I spent the entire day entering data and photographing butterflies. I'm baffled by the fact that butterflies don't just fall apart in midair. They are so fragile!

I only photographed 22 specimens today because they are so delicate that it takes me forever. They are also so light that they don't stay put, especially with the air conditioning keeping the air moving throughout the schoolhouse.

This is one of my favorite because it isn't that exciting from above, but the underside of the wings are really gorgeous. I particularly like the combination of blue (though it's pale) and orange. I've identified the genus as Pyrrhogyra, but I can't pin down the species.

Specimen of the genus Pyrrhogyra.

Here's another one, in Princeton colors, and this one I can identify! It's Eueides lybia, a member of the subfamily Heliconiinae, also known as longwings because the forewings (the upper set of wings) are considerable longer than the hindwings.

Eueides lybia.

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