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Cloudless Sulphur (Phoebis sennae) or Orange-Barred Sulphur (Phoe

Mary Leek
12 years ago

Woohoo, I caught a photo of one of my little yellow beauties. Could it be an Orange-Barred Sulphur? I've studied Sherry's Clouldless Sulphur photo and looked on line where I also saw the Orange-Barred. My little butterfly looks like it's veins protrude a bit more than Sherry's little beauty and has a bit darker color inside the edges of the wings. What do you think? How in the world do you tell the difference! :-)

There are several flitting around, nectaring on the Pentas and Lantana mainly. I don't have a host plant for them but would like to pick up some seed and try growing their host plant next year as an annual, to see if I can get some eggs.

Cloudless Sulphur (Phoebis sennae) or Orange-Barred Sulphur (Phoebis philea)?

{{gwi:542728}}

~Mary

Comments (9)

  • butterflymomok
    12 years ago

    Your butterfly is a beautiful Cloudless Sulphur, Phoebis sennae. I have seeds of the host plants and will stick some in for you.

    Sandy

  • MissButterfly
    12 years ago

    Looks like a cloudless sulphur to me, Mary. They're quite variable, but they lack the orange "bars" and have a different look about them, hard to explain.
    That's a beautiful picture!

    Sherry

  • fighting8r
    12 years ago

    Like Sherry said, once you know them they are unmistakable. A real beauty! The greenish tint (really green compared to the orange-barred) and almost pinkish edges give it away. Such a nice pic!! We've had a sudden uptick in the numbers of cloudless sulphurs lately too.

  • ladobe
    12 years ago

    Learning what makes a P. sennae a P. sennae, or a P. philea a P. philea is the starting place for telling them apart to at least species level. Species variation, as Sherry suggested, compounded even more by subspecies, forms, aberrations AND erronius information on the Internet or in field guides can make correct determinations difficult for most folks with only limited experience from their home gardens.

  • Mary Leek
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    My thanks to everyone for the ID assistance. I've updated my photo caption to the correct ID.

    Another 'new to me' butterfly in my garden this season! I learn so much here. Every season, my garden becomes a bit more hospitable as a buffterfly and hummingbird habitat, thanks to the help on this board.

    Mary

  • bob_71
    12 years ago

    Very nice photo!

    Bob

  • Ament
    12 years ago

    I absolutely love coming to this forum just to oogle the photos! You folks have such spectacular images of these beauties! I -am- jealous!

    Here is the 1 and only butterfly I managed to snap a photo of on my recent trip to SoCal the end of Sept. this year. S/He was a bit ratty with one hindwing tail portion missing, I'm not certain what it was, a swallowtail? It was nectaring on a bouganvilla, Flitting here and there. So it was a bit difficult to capture an image...
    {{gwi:542729}}

    Thanks for looking!

    ~Tina

  • MissButterfly
    12 years ago

    That's a giant swallowtail, Tina, and that's a great photo of the butterfly and the flower, which I do think is bouganvillea.
    Thanks for the your kind words!
    Sherry

  • Ament
    12 years ago

    Thank you for the kind words too Sherry! I thought it was a Swallowtail. Male or female? If you click on the image, there are several prior to this image and after it. I had trouble getting action shots, the camera was set on close-up instead of sport. I forgot to switch over! LOL My bad! :)

    I did get a few neat shots though and some really neat flower pictures too. That is a really nice bouganvillea, I did spell it wrong. Sorry. :) Love those!

    Again, thanks for looking!
    ~Tina