Julia Butterfly
by Robert Bales
Title
Julia 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.
Butterfly cocoons of many different kinds are shipped Fed Ex from Costa Rica to Boise, where they hatch at the Zoo. There are up to 500 butterflies in the enclosure at any given time.
Dryas iulia (often incorrectly spelled julia), commonly called the Julia Butterfly, Julia Heliconian, The Flame, or Flambeau, is a species of brush-footed butterfly. The sole representative of its genus Dryas, it is native from Brazil to southern Texas and Florida, and in summer can sometimes be found as far north as eastern Nebraska. Over 15 subspecies have been described.
Two Julia Butterflies drinking tears from turtles in Ecuador
Its wingspan ranges from 82 to 92 mm, and it is colored orange (brighter in male specimens) with black markings; this species is somewhat unpalatable to birds and belongs to the "orange" Batesian Mimicry mimic complex.
This butterfly is a fast flier and frequents clearings, paths, and margins of forests and woodlands. It feeds on the nectar of flowers, such as lantanas (Lantana) and Shepherd's-needle (Scandix pecten-veneris), and the tears of caiman, the eye of which the butterfly irritates to produce tears.[3] Its caterpillar feeds on leaves of passion vines including Passiflora affinis and Yellow Passionflower (P. lutea) in Texas.
The species is popular in butterfly houses because it is long-lived and active throughout the day.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Uploaded
July 7th, 2016
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Viewed 1,704 Times - Last Visitor from Fairfield, CT on 04/24/2024 at 10:17 PM
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Comments (28)
Christopher James
One of your peers nominated this image in the 1000 views Groups Special Features #19 promotion discussion. Please help your fellow artists by visiting and passing on the love to another artist in the the 1000 Views Group....L/F/Tw
Gary F Richards
Spectacular composition, lighting, shading, color and artwork! F/L Congratulations on your features!
Robert Bales replied:
Thanks so much, Gary for the wonderful review, and the congrats along with the LF!!
Christopher James
Congratulation.....your wonderful work has been featured in the 1000 Views on 1 Image Group ..... Please place your featured image in the Feature Archive and any other appropriate Archives l/f/p
Robert Bales replied:
thanks, Christopher for the nice feature, comments, congrats, invite, and the promotion!!
Anita Faye
Robert, gorgeous Julia Butterfly! Featured on Groovy Butterflies! https://fineartamerica.com/groups/groovy-butterflies.html