Hackberry Butterfly
This afternoon a Hackberry Butterfly – much prettier than its name might suggest – stayed for an hour or more around the back deck, mostly sitting with folded wings on the white plastic surface of a deck chair. The underside of its wings was pearl gray, with seven dark spots with circles around them, like eyes – dark blue in the center, then a ring of yellow, then a wide black spot, and a yellow ring around this, and finally a thin black ring.
Now and then, the butterfly opened its wings, showing the upper surface. Against a background of orange and brown, it was velvety black near the upper wing tips, with four white spots of varying size and shape near the tip, then seven saffron-yellow spots on the hind wing, and behind that, it was orange with big black spots – these were the spots that looked like eyes on the underside of the wings. The antennae were thin, with marked segments, like a delicate strand of tiny dots, and yellow bulbous tips. The body was furry orange-brown, the wing edges barely scalloped, with a very thin trim of white on the edge.
It was a placid butterfly, not easily scared into flight, and most of the time it sat with wings folded up, probing the white plastic of the chair with a long, thread-like proboscis. When it did fly up, it flew to the sunny brick wall above, stayed there only briefly, then came back to the chair – though I can’t imagine what might have been the attraction there, except that it was in the shade and a little bit dirty and dusty. Nearby on the deck were the bright yellow blooms of lantana and the red blooms of geraniums – but they seemed of no interest at all to the Hackberry Butterfly.
The larvae of Hackberry Butterflies (Asterocampa celtis) feed on the leaves of hackberry trees, usually in colonies. Adults feed on rotting fruit, dung and sap flows, and may also get some nutrients from road surfaces and wet spots. They are said often to have favorite perches to which they repeatedly return.
I’m not at all sure I’m using the correct terms for butterfly parts and markings, and I’m certainly not knowledgeable about butterflies – but I enjoyed watching this one closely and trying to note as much about it as I could, then later looking it up and learning more.