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Nymphalis antiopa
The upper side of the butterfly is colored in a very dark red, with a bright, yellowish border around the wings. There is a darker band with bright blue spots between the border and the dark red inner side. Sexes are similar, although the females are slightly larger.
Native to Eurasia and North America. Seen in my yard enjoying persimmons.
Spotted on Oct 17, 2012
Submitted on Oct 20, 2012
4 Comments
Thanks everyone! Jacob, I don't know why it has that name. Wikipedia says the following: "In several European countries with Germanic languages, other than Britain, the name for this butterfly literally translates to "Mourning Cloak", such as German "Trauermantel", Swedish "sorgmantel", and Norwegian "Sørgekåpen". This suggests it is a name which came with Scandinavian or German rather than with British settlers, for whom this species would be considerably less familiar."
Lovely spotting! Why is this butterfly Mourning? It's so beautiful! It should have nothing to be sad about! Amazing ventral shot, too. I've not seen that before.
it has so silk looking wings...i like the first and the last shots
Beautiful..