Exotic butterflies @ Wisley Glasshouse

[nytecam]

Here's frame-grabs from my HD vid taken yesterday - the display is on 'till Feb 28 so still just time




Help - this pair I failed to identify !

[ChrisR]

Originally Posted by nytecam

Help - this pair I failed to identify !

The first one is just another Caligo (Owl butterfly) - but the top surface

The second is another swallowtail but I'm not sure which - reminds me of P.rumanazovia but without the red

[nytecam]

Thanks for the b-fly identification Here's the video YouTube - Butterflies at Wisley via Hitachi DZHV1074 HD cam enjoy

[ChrisR]

Yeah, butterfly houses can be great places to practice your technique with a new camera. I took my girlfriend to Stratford Butterfly Farm a few weeks ago and we had a great time - lots of species flying even on a really cloudy day

[aeshna5]

I visited today for the penultimate day of this exhibtion. There were some fine butterflies present- good numbers of Owl Butterflies, a few Blue Morphos winging about, several Malachites, a Green-banded + some Scarlet Swallowtails.

Most of the Tree Nymphs seemed to be dead by now. One of the volunteers said to me that the lack of sunshine has been a problem this year as some of the butterflies emerging from pupae had problems drying their wings.

It's the second year they have run the butterfly exhibit + certainly seemed to be a popular draw with the public. Plenty of educational information around.

[Jaeviatrix]

Looks like a male papilio rumanzovia to me.

butterfly houses are great fun.

Jay

[Monkey Orchid]

I used to work at The Living Rainforest (near Newbury), and we had a lot of free-flying butterflies in the big glasshouse there... Blue morphos, paperwings, various swallowtails etc. The visitors loved them (as did the birds living in the glasshouse!). I used to hunt for blue morpho caterpillars feeding on tropical plants, wondefully weird looking critters. I'll post a piccie on here when I've got a bit more time.

It's weird though, I used to be a bit phobic of butterfly houses, wasn't keen on having big butterflies flapping around me in quantity... But now I'm fine with them. When I used to do school tours we often used to let them settle on our arms to suck up the salts from our skin. There's something quite mesmerising about blue morphos particularly, that ethereal metallic blue is almost magical.

[Monkey Orchid]

As promised, some photos of Blue morpho adults and caterpillar from The Living Rainforest, near Newbury...

[aeshna5]

There's also a new exhibition of live butterflies at the London Natural History Society .