White Admiral - Amiral - Limenitis arthemis arthemis
‘Puddling’ is one of the type of descriptors that uses the name of a typical place where an activity occurs to describe the activity itself. In fact, ‘puddling’ is the way butterflies (or at least certain species of butterfly) extract minerals needed for many things, especially reproduction. As many of us know, sugar water is a great way to get by, but more complex nutrients are needed if we want to do anything more complex.
The nutrients extracted from whatever the butterfly finds as its source (manure, dead animal carcasses, puddles) are passed on in the reproductive process to help build healthy young. In this case, a White Admiral (Limenitis arthemis - the subspecies in my area is arthemis again, hence the double naming) uses minerals along the side of a country road. It had rained, but in some cases the butterfly can spit up to help facilitate the extraction.
This was taken on a very remote country road during a walk to look at wildflowers and insects, camera in hand. I did have to lie down on the shoulder to get this perspective, but I was not alone and had a person watching for cars (there were none) and it was along a straight patch with high visibility.
White Admiral - Amiral - Limenitis arthemis arthemis
‘Puddling’ is one of the type of descriptors that uses the name of a typical place where an activity occurs to describe the activity itself. In fact, ‘puddling’ is the way butterflies (or at least certain species of butterfly) extract minerals needed for many things, especially reproduction. As many of us know, sugar water is a great way to get by, but more complex nutrients are needed if we want to do anything more complex.
The nutrients extracted from whatever the butterfly finds as its source (manure, dead animal carcasses, puddles) are passed on in the reproductive process to help build healthy young. In this case, a White Admiral (Limenitis arthemis - the subspecies in my area is arthemis again, hence the double naming) uses minerals along the side of a country road. It had rained, but in some cases the butterfly can spit up to help facilitate the extraction.
This was taken on a very remote country road during a walk to look at wildflowers and insects, camera in hand. I did have to lie down on the shoulder to get this perspective, but I was not alone and had a person watching for cars (there were none) and it was along a straight patch with high visibility.