Bellona metalmark, La Planada Nature Reserve, Colombia

On this very rainy day at La Planada Nature Reserve, we had trouble enough to protect the tele setup from drowning, so we did not bother with carrying around a second camera body with a macro setup. Instead, we just used our smartphone to pick up some butterflies along the way. There's several open paths in this reserve where you occasionally find some clusters of them.

Although I'm a bit of a gear freak, this approach works reasonably well. Butterflies are large enough to not really require a 1:1 magnification. In this case, the 2x lens on my smartphone also came in handy as I could do this from *some* distance to not disturb the butterfly. And finally, another advantage is that I don't have to worry about focus or depth of field, due to the tiny sensor, everything is in focus by default.

comments (6)

Christine Young

Lion

Beautiful! I love metalmarks <3 Posted 6 years ago
1. Ferdy Christant
  
  Lion
  
  I think I've said it before, but in dutch "riodinidae" translates as "beautiful butterflies". We call things as they are :) Posted 6 years ago
2. 1. Christine Young
    
    Lion
    
    I love that! Posted 6 years ago
  2. 1. Ferdy Christant
      
      Lion
      
      I still consider it a strange family though. If you look at large sets of them, it's hard to see how they even belong to the same family, many don't seem to have much in common, visually that is. But then there is "nymphalidae", which I simply internally call "other" :)
      
      With birds, the strangest family I know of are the Vangas:
      https://www.jungledragon.com/wildlife/browse/animalia/chordata/aves/passeriformes/vangidae
      
      The entire family is endemic to Madagascar. But look at them, every feature of their anatomy is wildly different from the next bird, yet still they're related. Posted 6 years ago
    2. 1. Christine Young
        
        Lion
        
        That's weird! It looks like a taxonomist just dumped some birds into that family as an "other" category.
        
        Nymphalids are odd too - they are known to have reduced forelegs. But, not all butterflies in that family have reduced forelegs. Yet, it is their most commonly known feature. Posted 6 years ago
      2. Ferdy Christant
        
        Lion
        
        It's how I identify butterflies: I quickly check the explicit families like Papilionidae, Pieridae, Lycaenidae, Hesperiidae. They are quick to match or rule out. If all ruled out, I'm thinking...sigh, it's an "other": Nymphalidae :) Posted 6 years ago