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| A couple of years ago when I first started trying to identify the butterflies that I had photographed, I met the deepest frustrations in my life of being outdoors. It seemed that every one I shot had one or more nearly identical twins. The technical names of the anatomical parts used in field guides was unintelligible to me...still is. I vowed that, if I ever learned to identify the markings that differentiated one similar species from another, I would do my dead-level best to capture these differences photographically so that some other poor souls out there might have a little easier time than I did.
What I have learned is that butterflies have a forewing and a hindwing on each side of their body and, more often than not, the markings and/or coloration is totally different on the two sides. With these two butterflies, the number and size of the eyespots visible on the underside of the hindwing is different. The American Lady usually has two eyespots while the Painted Lady usually has four. In addition, The American Lady has a white spot visible in the orange cell of the upper forewing. This white spot is absent on the Painted Lady. AMERICAN LADY
AMERICAN LADY
AMERICAN LADY
PAINTED LADY
PAINTED LADY
I hope this will give help to someone out there! Bob |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| Wow, I did not know that, good to know, thanks, awesome photos by the way. |
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- Posted by butterflyman 5 (My Page) on Sun, Apr 24, 11 at 8:49
| Nice pictures - I'd like to see you do that with other butterflies that look similar. Skippers can be very hard to identify. |
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| Absolutely splendid pictures Bob!! A terrific idea too! My sister just asked me yesterday about differentiating between these two butterflies. I told her about the eyespots and the white dots.~~Angie |
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- Posted by misssherry Z8MS (My Page) on Sun, Apr 24, 11 at 10:21
| Beautiful pictures, Bob, and instructional! Sherry |
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- Posted by larry_gene z8_Sunset6_OR (My Page) on Mon, Apr 25, 11 at 23:07
| Bob has certainly shown here why he was well-suited to author the Camera Settings...topic in our FAQ. |
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| Great pics . Angie |
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- Posted by sweet_melissa 7 (My Page) on Thu, Jun 2, 11 at 20:24
| Thank you for posting this! Very helpful! |
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- Posted by butterflymomok (My Page) on Thu, Jun 2, 11 at 21:20
| You've added two more beautiful photos to your collection. Thanks for sharing these pics; I struggled with these for a long time. Participating in butterfly counts is a good way to get familiar with the similar BFs. |
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| Your kind words are very important to me! Bob |
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