From My Perch: Butterflies

On our Texas trip, every time I saw an orange and black butterfly, I tried to photograph it. I was sure that they were mostly duplicates. To my surprise, I had 5 new species. They sure looked alike in the field but when I studied them carefully, the patterns of orange and black and white were different.

These butterflies are all in the Brush-footed family, Nymphalidae. I just learned that all butterflies in this family have one distinctive characteristic. The forelegs of the adult butterfly are greatly reduced in size, covered with short hairs, and useless for walking. They appear to have only 4 legs. In the male butterfly, the forelegs are so small that they are like hairy stumps which suggest a tiny bottle brush. Hence, the family name.

The Monarch belongs to this family, so next time you see a Monarch butterfly, see if you can only count 4 legs because it is very difficult to see the stumps in the field.