Fritillary butterflies - different look-a-likes.

If you see a large orange butterfly with numerous black markings on its wings (and it's not a monarch), it's probably a fritillary.  Determining species can be a challenge; many of them look similar and can only be properly identified upon close examination.  It helps a great deal to see both surfaces of the wings.  I photographed this one yesterday morning while it was basking on a sunlit log.  Unfortunately, I never got to see its underwings.

There are 14 species of greater fritillary butterflies.  The one I photographed is quite possibly a great-spangled fritillary, although identification remains uncertain.  Regardless of specifics, I find it to be an amazing insect and love how it filled the frame of my camera and telephoto lens.  So often the butterflies I photograph are small and the images require significant cropping.

Fritillary caterpillars feed on violets.  The female deposits an egg on a dead violet plant, its blooms long since fallen.  The egg hatches and the larva consumes the egg case and then promptly falls to the ground and prepares for the coming winter.  In the spring, when the perennial violet reemerges, the young caterpillar begins feeding.  When it has reached maturity, it pupates and later emerges as an adult.  The cycle continues.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com