© Robert Siegel
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Butterflies and caterpillars

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Florida 2009

Spanish moth

florida
Xanthopastis timais
Flamingo, Everglades National Park
March 25, 2009

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heart-felt close-up of wing

florida
Flamingo, Everglades National Park
March 25, 2009

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Florida 2011

Butterfly

butterfly
Myakka Lemur Reserve
August 23, 2011

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Tussock moth

Tussock moth caterpillar on thumb

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Giant caterpillar invasion of Stanford Quad

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Caterpillar on the attack

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Tussock marauding

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Tussock up close and personal

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Splendor in the grass
Colias eurytheme

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Some comments per Dr. Carol Boggs, butterfly aficionado:
A female Colias eurytheme, the alfalfa butterfly. Larval host plants are alfalfa, vetch and various other legumes - but not the purple-flowered legume that's blooming in places on the Stanford dish. It can't diapause, so is a lowland species. You can find it in huge numbers in Central Valley alfalfa fields in summer/fall; it hangs out probably on native hosts, developing slowly, over the winter. It seems to be much more numerous in the Bay Area itself in spring in recent years. Females come in two morphs - yellow/orange like the males, or "alba" (a dominant autosomal sex-limited gene) which results in a white phenotype, caused by re-routing lots of N-containing compounds away from the yellow pigmentation and into reproduction/faster development and the like particularly at low temperatures. The Colias is the study animal of Dr. Ward Watt at Stanford.

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Wing things

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Flutterby on hibiscus

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Butter colored butter

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More butter

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A head of his time

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Winging it.

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Brazil

Finger ornament

moth
Hieroglyphic moth (Diphthera festiva)
Jaguar Lodge
March, 2011

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Moth

moth
Jaguar Lodge

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Catepillar

caterpillar
Jaguar Lodge
March, 2011

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Other relevant pages

ball 12 of the Most Fascinating Butterflies

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Last modified: April 14, 2019
Renamed: April 14, 2019 (from butterflies)
Created: April 13, 2007
Contact: siegelr@stanford.edu