Since I’ve started to blog I’ve gotten the camera bug. I love the photographs I find on various blogs and if you are going to compete, you have to strive to offer the reader what they want. I often look for guidance from BC Doan because she always has stunning imagery on hers and interesting content. It is quite challenging to try to capture the beauty on film, especially with a moving target and this has added a new element of interest to my life.

I find myself parking by the road side to take pictures of interesting flowers here and there.  I leave for work earlier and get home later taking a different route daily to find new subjects of to photograph. Sometimes I have to park a block away because of parking restrictions, but usually the pictures are worth it. At least photography is getting me off my behind and outside to enjoy Mother Nature. I love flowers and there are so many varieties. I do not think I will ever get bored, but I wanted to add a little more and stopped the other day to watch a butterfly flitting around.

photos by me.

Quickly I grabbed my camera and walked quietly and slowly hoping it would stay on the flower where it had landed. I have been wishing to spot a Monarch. They are so beautiful, but this was just a little white butterfly with a couple of black dots on it. It seemed to enjoy tantalizing me by landing and taking off the minute I was ready to click the button. This went on for several moments and I only got three pictures. I wanted a close up but the butterfly did not trust me. Then when I started downloading my photos later a question plagued me. What if my butterfly is just a moth? I will look so silly posting my photos and calling my subject a butterfly if it truly isn’t. This is one of the marvelous things about computers; I typed in “the difference between a butterfly and a moth” And now have data accumulated from three different sources. If you are wondering these are the differences:

• Butterflies are inactive at night, resting mostly alone, but sometimes in groups called “roosts.”
• Moths are the opposite, taking flight at daylight.
• Moths rely on odors and sounds to find their way around.
• Moths have a sense of smell located in their antennae.
• They can also detect sounds that are outside the range of human ears.
• To divert becoming a bat’s dinner they will quickly drop to the ground.
• Butterflies are often the brighter of the two, but not always.
• Butterflies are slimmer and hairless.
• The butterfly’s antennae are long, slender and tipped with knobs.
• The moth’s antennas resemble feathers or are hair like.
• Some butterflies have an underside to their wings which are marked differently to blend in with their surrounding when they land.
• Butterflies are beneficial to vegetation as they aid in pollination.
• When resting a moth’s wings are spanned outward and a butterfly’s upward.
• Most moths have a tiny hook or bristle which connects the forewings and hind wings.
• Moths have existed for 100 million years longer than butterflies.
• The both are caterpillars at one time, but undergo their metamorphosis differently.

Similarities of the two are:

• They both belong to a group of insects called Lepidoptera meaning “scaly wing.” It is these scales that give them colors and patterns.
• When the scales are lacking the wings are transparent.
• Most spend their lives in temperate climates.
• Many butterflies migrate but only a few moths do.
• Both have their nose in their antenna.

My thanks to Reader’s Digest ABC’s of Nature: A Family Answer Book,

http://library.thinkquest.org/J002124/index.htm  

http://animals.howstuffworks.com/insects/moth-versus-butterfly1.htm

There are exceptions to the rules.

• The Actias Artemis is an Asian moth which does not fall within the traditional moth colors of white, brown, and/or gray. It is so colorful it is sometimes called the night butterfly.
• The Cecropia moth is a brilliantly patterned moth. It is a giant silk moth with a six-inch wing span.

Anita353flickr.com

©iStockphoto//Pauline Mills

• The skipper falls into a category of its own being similar to both a butterfly and a moth. It has a moth’s stocky body and a butterfly’s knobby antennae. They fly during the day but have duller coloring like a moth. They hold their wings at a different angle than either one. 

Butterflies are almost everywhere.

They can be found every where, everywhere but Antarctica, that is. There are about 6,000 named species with approximately 700 different types found in North America and 400 in Europe. For a peek at some stunning butterflies check out Chan’s article:

http://www.quazen.com/Arts/Photography/Stunning-and-Magnificent-Photographs-of-the-Butterflies-Wings.240215