Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Butterfly or moth?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmm, I'll go with skipper - sort of in between moth and butterfly.

SAPhotographs (Joan) said...

An easy way to remember is that butterflies land with their wings closed above them and moths with them spread out like this. Also, butterflies have a knob on the end of their antennae and moths dont.

Hope this helps Steven. :)

Anonymous said...

The part about the antennae is true (sort of - skippers have a slight thickening that tapers at the tip, rather than a true knob). The part about the wings is not - there are butterflies that hold their wings spread out and there are moths that fold them above their backs.

Anonymous said...

Definitely a skipper - genus Achylodes, perhaps A. busirus.

SAPhotographs (Joan) said...

Ted is correct and I should have said that was a general rule which you can apply to at least 80% of the species, there are some exceptions.