🦅 🪿RKeller Photography🏳️‍🌈
@Rihilism@toot.community  ·  activity timestamp last week

Viceroy along the Iowa River Trail on Monday.

Viceroys & monarchs are considered Müllerian mimics or "honest mimics". Both are distasteful to predators. They're in different genera but developed color patterns that reinforce each species' "warning".

#PhotoHour #nature#Photography#AltText

Closeup photograph of a viceroy butterfly standing on long brown grasses with a few long green grasses and vague greens and browns in the background. The grasses angle slightly from the lower right frame to the left frame and the butterfly takes up most of the center left frame. The view is from above and the butterfly's wings are spread wide to the left and right leaving the upper body and the back of the wings visible. Viceroy butterflies have orange wings with black and white patterned edges and black veining, black bodies and heads covered with white markings and fine black hairs, large dark compound eyes, two long black segmented antennae that end in orange dots, and six black segmented legs. They can be distinguished from monarch butterflies by the straight black stripe that extends across the lower wing. Monarchs are typically larger and they lack a straight line across the lower wing.
Closeup photograph of a viceroy butterfly standing on long brown grasses with a few long green grasses and vague greens and browns in the background. The grasses angle slightly from the lower right frame to the left frame and the butterfly takes up most of the center left frame. The view is from above and the butterfly's wings are spread wide to the left and right leaving the upper body and the back of the wings visible. Viceroy butterflies have orange wings with black and white patterned edges and black veining, black bodies and heads covered with white markings and fine black hairs, large dark compound eyes, two long black segmented antennae that end in orange dots, and six black segmented legs. They can be distinguished from monarch butterflies by the straight black stripe that extends across the lower wing. Monarchs are typically larger and they lack a straight line across the lower wing.
Closeup photograph of a viceroy butterfly standing on long brown grasses with a few long green grasses and vague greens and browns in the background. The grasses angle slightly from the lower right frame to the left frame and the butterfly takes up most of the center left frame. The view is from above and the butterfly's wings are spread wide to the left and right leaving the upper body and the back of the wings visible. Viceroy butterflies have orange wings with black and white patterned edges and black veining, black bodies and heads covered with white markings and fine black hairs, large dark compound eyes, two long black segmented antennae that end in orange dots, and six black segmented legs. They can be distinguished from monarch butterflies by the straight black stripe that extends across the lower wing. Monarchs are typically larger and they lack a straight line across the lower wing.