The Nature Photography Thread

[Hornets23]

They ARE really cool! I thought about hanging on to a few but I think they are gone now..

[guidofatherof5]

Must be near Fall here in Iowa.
The Monarch Butterfly(Danaus plexippus) caterpillars are showing up on our milkweed vines and milkweed plants.
We love these little pigs. They are eating machines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarch_(butterfly)

[Mrs N1ntndo]

Love Monarchs there my favorite butterflies. We have a butterfly out her that looks like them but they are pretenders but I dont remember the name. but beautiful in the same way. I love nature.

[guidofatherof5]

Are you talking about the Painted Lady Butterfly?
They are awesome also.
Painted Lady - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[ConcinusMan]

That's all we have in the Northwest that comes close. But they're much smaller. Painted ladies. Also happens to be the only butterfly that's legal to import eggs/caterpillars for class studies. We have milkweed here. It's just that nothing eats it. No monarchs. Painted ladies are colored like monarchs, but they're much smaller. They're native but don't really visit backyards much. I find them mostly in meadows with plenty of native flowers.

I haven't seen a monarch since I was a kid. We raised them up in class in California. We don't have them in the Northwest.

But we have Tiger Swallowtails which are huge and quite spectacular.


Finding the larvae though is very rare. They live high up in trees. I've only found them when they fell to the ground and birds were picking at them.

[RedSidedSPR]

I've seen a few Monarchs here. They are cool..

[kibakiba]

I've seen monarchs around here. They're few and far between, but they do come here.

[ConcinusMan]

"The monarch butterfly can be found in North America south of Hudson Bay down to South America. It is not found in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. It has been established in Hawaii and Australia."

You're probably seeing Painted Lady Butterflies Chantel. They look similar to a monarch, only smaller.



I remember when I lived in San Diego, just two miles from the Mexican border, millions of monarch butterflies would spend Jan and Feb in certain trees. They would completely cover the trees and just sit there for a couple of months until the weather warmed up. It was really something to see when it was time for them to leave.

[kibakiba]

I dunno, they're huge, yellow and have monarch-like markings. They don't look like a painted lady or a swallow tail. You don't see them often, it's like one or two every few years. There were tons of them when I was in Oregon, too.

[RedSidedSPR]

They can't be monarchs.