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Southern Pearly Eye Butterfly
A Southern Pearly Eye butterfly, perched on a palm frond near Sharktooth Spring in Seminole State Forest. I wish I could have gotten closer, but that lens' minimum focus is 9 feet. (The metadata says 50mm which is what it says when it doesn't detect a lens; it was a 200mm manual lens that's older than me.) But this kind of butterfly is particularly timid anyway!
The Southern Pearly Eye, Portland Pearlyeye or just Pearly Eye is a butterfly of the Nymphalidae family. It is found from eastern Oklahoma and eastern Texas east through the south-eastern United States.
The wingspan is 56–70 mm. The upperside is brown with dark eyespots at the margins. The underside is light brown. Adults feed on sap, rotting fruit, carrion and dung.
The larvae feed on the leaves of ''Arundinaria tecta''. The species overwinters in the larval stage.
comments (3)
Travis: I think this is part of why I like swamp habitat so much. The vegetation is typically very green like this, which is nice on its own, but it's much easier to get a nice background too. [The shade and the natural heat sinks help too.] Posted 10 years ago