shawnhunter's Identifications

This was the find of the day for us. John and Kendra Abbott and I were driving slowly along a forest road in the SE corner of Oklahoma in the Ouachita National Forest when we saw a large blue and black butterfly nectaring on some sunflowers a short way off the road. It was a huge butterfly and I thought at first it was a large female Tiger Swallowtail, but when we got the vehicle stopped we saw it was not a swallowtail and realized it was a female Diana Fritillary! We only had it in view a few moments before it took off back into the forest, but we obtained a few shots. I had seen a couple of males at a distance in Arkansas last year but was not able to take any shots, so this was the first time I've ever photographed the species. A very exciting record for us of this very local and often hard to find butterfly. I'll post 4 shots.

It was a 5.5 hour drive to my alma mater in southwestern Virginia, but Diana Fritillaries are worth it - at least to a crazy person. These large beautiful butterflies are rare denizens of the southern Appalachians, where their caterpillars feed on violets, though the females do not lay on the plants themselves, but on the adjacent ground. The name Diana fittingly honors the Roman goddess of light (also the moon and the hunt [Thanks Rex]). Pictured above is one of 11 males we found - Thanks Bruce for the Diana tour!

Montgomery Co., VA