Common Owl Butterfly
by Robert Bales
Title
Common Owl Butterfly
Artist
Robert Bales
Medium
Photograph - Photo
Description
One of the many butterflies at the Boise Zoo Butterflies Bloom Exhibit . It is a great place to view many different types of butterflies. You can walk through a greenhouse-like mesh enclosure with hundreds of butterflies. Zoo Boise Director Steve Burns says the butterflies come from Costa Rica. It gives the farmers in that area the opportunity to make money off of the forests rather than have to cut it down and ranch it so it is a great way for those folks to keep the rainforests intact and still make money for their families.
An owl butterfly is a butterfly, in the genus Caligo, known for their huge eyespots, which resemble owls' eyes. They are found in the rainforests and secondary forests of Mexico, Central, and South America.
Owl butterflies are very large, 65-200 mm (2.6-7.9 in), and fly only a few meters at a time, so avian predators have little difficulty in following them to their settling place. However, the butterflies preferentially fly in dusk, when few avian predators are around. The Latin name may possibly refer to their active periods. Caligo means darkness.
Some owl butterflies form leks in mating behavior
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Uploaded
August 30th, 2016
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Viewed 1,019 Times - Last Visitor from New York, NY on 03/18/2024 at 5:02 PM
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Comments (5)
Anita Faye
Robert, happy to feature your beautiful work on Groovy Butterflies! https://fineartamerica.com/groups/groovy-butterflies.html
Greta Corens
What a special view of a butterfly. Taken out of its 'sweet' context, it becomes a great painting. L/F