I stopped by Two Creeks Conservation Area outside of Wheatley last week. The site has a bunch of riparian meadows and thicket habitats which made for some good butterfly-watching. It's tough to miss a fly-by swallowtail butterfly just due to their size. I was surprised when I reviewed the photo below (taken on my cellphone) to see the rainbow of colours on this Black Swallowtail (click to enlarge). This has to be a product of light refracting and how my camera picked it up, but interesting nonetheless.
American Lady were also out and about, the tiny white dots you see embedded in the orange part of the wing are diagnostic for differentiating this species from the similar Painted Lady. This spot is not always present however and other features including 2 large spots on the underwing (versus 5 small ones), and upperwings brighter orange, less pointed, and smaller black areas than Painted. American has spots with blue in the centre while Painted most often lacks the blue centres.
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