July 5th, 2006
white admiral butterflies
For the past few weeks, I’ve been seeing quite a few White Admiral (Limenitis arthemis) butterflies in the woods and forest edges here at the farm. I tend to find them basking on leaves in dappled forest light. They also seem to burst out of the inner branches of the Poplar and Willow trees along one of our hiking trails. They do a lot of erratic flitting from tree to tree, spending only a moment on a leaf before moving on. I suspect they may be laying eggs during their brief pauses.
On July 3rd, I found a very small caterpillar on a Salix leaf in the area where the White Admirals have been particularly active. The caterpillar is brownish-black with white markings. It has spiny horns and a dorsal hump. When disturbed, it curls its head to one side and flattens its horns. When in this position, it very much resembles a bird dropping (see photo on left – click on image for larger view). Some of you may recall a rather similar shaped, but green-colored caterpillar that I posted a photo of back on May 25th. I believe it too was a White Admiral as the caterpillar usually turns greenish-grey as it reaches full size. The caterpillar of the Viceroy (Limenitis archippus) is quite similar, in fact, difficult to distinguish from that of the White Admiral, so there’s a chance it could have been one of those.
Back in early June, I also found an irregular-shaped black, gray and white chrysalis attached to a Poplar tree in the same vicinity as both the black and the green caterpillars. I wasn’t able to find other photos of a White Admiral chrysalis online for comparison, but this one (click on image for larger view) seems to fit the written description. I visited and photographed it almost daily for over a week until one day I found it empty with the butterfly departed. Nice to see that it seemed to be successful in its metamorphosis.
The butterfly below was found here at the farm a couple of weeks ago. This photo provides a decent view of the underside markings of the wings. While the upper side of the wings is mainly black with a broad white band, the lower side is very heavily marked with turquoise and brick red spots and dashes.
White Admirals are known for some confusing variations in markings. In fact, there is a subspecies without white bands, and there are hybrids between these. In fact, White Admirals are also supposed to be able to hybridize with Viceroy (Limenitis archippus) butterflies as well (they are both members of the same subfamily Limenitidae). I’m quite sure that the butterfly in the photo just below is a hybrid of some kind as I’ve never seen another that had such extensive turquoise markings and a sort of overall “haze” of turquoise over the black sections. Compare it with the example at the top of this post (click on both images for larger views). The one at the top is a little different again, with quite extensive brick-red spots on its upper hind wings. Most examples of this species that I’ve seen have somewhat less distinct reddish markings on their upper wings. I should also mention that the butterfly at the bottom of this post was photographed about 50 miles south of here at a location on the Canadian Shield, while the one at the top was photographed here at the farm. I think these photos provide a good example of how useful it is to keep photographic records of insect specimens – especially when you notice individuals that are a little out of the ordinary. It’s also interesting to compare specimens from different locations to watch for regional variations.
Tags: White Admiral, Limenitis arthemis, Viceroy, Limenitis archippus, chrysalis