common buckeye / northern buckeyeJunonia coenia grisea
Buckeye the tree or buckeye the butterfly? As with the tree, CA has a different kind than is found east of here. The CA buckeye tree is Aesculus californica and the American buckeye tree is Aesculus glabra. The buckeye butterfly found in CA is Junonia coenia grisea and elsewhere it is known as Junonia coenia coenia or other Junonia spp. entirely (according to Butterflies of America, a particularly anal-in-a-good-way butterfly site if you really, really want to know your butterfly species). As far as I know the buckeye butterfly caterpillars do not feed on buckeye trees.
Buckeye butterflies are bold-eyed, medium-sized butterflies that I often encounter sunning themselves in the middle of paths. This is my first entry on Nature ID of this familiar and easily approachable butterfly, because I regularly forget to post common finds. It was pretty easy getting a clear picture as this individual was mud-puddling near a creek. I was hoping to get a ground level shot to show its proboscis stuck in the wet goop, but it suddenly got shy and lowered its wings. Then, it had enough of its candid photo session and flew away.
ps - Cool! Google's blogspot/blogger has a new photo feature if you click on any picture. Check it out... Oh man, my photos are really going to show how poor quality they are now. In that case, never mind.
pss 09/20/11 - For more colorful posts of those other buckeye butterflies from across the continent, check out ohio birds and biodiversity or the garden-roof coop.
pss 09/23/11 - Well, that didn't last very long. Google switched back its new cool feature of gallery-like photo displays. Quite frankly, I don't care enough to check out the discussion boards as to why this was reversed.
Buckeye butterflies are bold-eyed, medium-sized butterflies that I often encounter sunning themselves in the middle of paths. This is my first entry on Nature ID of this familiar and easily approachable butterfly, because I regularly forget to post common finds. It was pretty easy getting a clear picture as this individual was mud-puddling near a creek. I was hoping to get a ground level shot to show its proboscis stuck in the wet goop, but it suddenly got shy and lowered its wings. Then, it had enough of its candid photo session and flew away.
ps - Cool! Google's blogspot/blogger has a new photo feature if you click on any picture. Check it out... Oh man, my photos are really going to show how poor quality they are now. In that case, never mind.
pss 09/20/11 - For more colorful posts of those other buckeye butterflies from across the continent, check out ohio birds and biodiversity or the garden-roof coop.
pss 09/23/11 - Well, that didn't last very long. Google switched back its new cool feature of gallery-like photo displays. Quite frankly, I don't care enough to check out the discussion boards as to why this was reversed.
5 comments:
Hang on a minute, what sort of plant is that? :o)
Thanks for the hint about the new photo feature, I hadn't noticed it.
Nice butterfly.
aw, a demure butterfly. =) And I just posted about them. LOVEly shots, Katie. When I was a kid, these guys were my favorite. I kind of like understated underdogs. Other kids were running after giant super showy butterflies (swallowtails, etc.), but I would bat my eyelashes at the buckeyes. LOVELY creatures.
Haha, Graeme. I haven't figured out why my photos are so big compared to other bloggers who I know have much fancier cameras than I do.
Thanks, Bob. Hmm, do you have anything similar to buckeyes where you are?
bb, I really liked your series of shots of flirting buckeyes. While a drab brown, they do have incredible markings worth taking a closer look.
Gorgeous 'eyes'
Beautiful shots
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