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Showing results for tags 'butterfly'.
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I spy a moth, a butterfly's wing, a touch of gold and a few specs of pyrite. I do have terrible eyesight though.. Southern Indiana. Lake bed hosting Stigmaria, concretions, banded iron formations, black and gray shales, glacial tills, arsenic, pyrite, copper, concentrated electrum clays
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Hi, please, could you help us with the identification of this fossil? It belongs to the south of Spain. Thanks in advance
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Anyone able to help with ID on an interesting lepidopteran in Mexican amber from Chiapas (ca. 18-25 Ma)? Any/all thoughts much appreciated. It looked like a nymphalid (perhaps Eurema?) from merchant photos. However after getting the amber and holding it, I'm totally thrown off! There's no record of butterflies from continental Neotropical amber---and preservation is exceptional. Associated with the lep are the flowers, foliage, pollen and seeds of Hymenaea and at least 2 other legumes. Perhaps there's even an orchid hidden in there. (The max file limit's too small to include these hi-res photos...) Amber matrix: ca. 7 x 4 x 2 cm (oblong) Wingspan ca. 3.5 cm Length of wing at longest point ca. 2 cm (crude estimate) 'Unfortunately' (for ID) the amber heavily fluoresces a lovely blue/green: the foliage, pollen, flowers obscure the specimen's body on the (presumably) dorsal side. It's further complicated by refraction on what would be the ventral side. What looks like a dark antenna in the pics is actually just the a side-view of one of the flowering legume's pinnae. I wouldn't be surprised if it's a geometer moth, but what a remarkable fossil if it proves to be a skipper or true butterfly (nymphalid? lycaenid/riodinid?). Thanks all.
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Partial forewing. The venation of this fossil butterfly forewing is indistinguishable from that of a recent Black-veined Whites A. crataegi. References: Branscheid, F. (1969): Funde von Tagfaltern (Rhopalocera, Lepidoptera) im Pliozän von Willershausen. Berichte der Naturhistorischen Gesellschaft Hannover 113, 1969 Branscheid, F. (1968): Ein weiterer Schmetterlingsflügel von Willershausen. Berichte der Naturhistorischen Gesellschaft Hannover Beiheft 6, 1968 Branscheid, F.(1977): Fossile Schmetterlinge (Rhopalocera, Lepidoptera) aus dem Pliozän von Willershausen. Beitraege zur Naturkunde Niedersachsens. Hannover 1977; 30(4): 85-88. Brauckmann, C., Groening, E. (2001): Anmerkungen zu den bisher gefundenen Lepidopteren aus Willershausen. Jahresberichte des Naturwissenschaftlichen Vereins in Wuppertal, 54, 2001, 31-41. Kernbach, K. (1967): Über die im Pliozän gefundenen Schmetterlings- und Raupenreste. Berichte der Naturhistorischen Gesellschaft Hannover 111, 1967, p 103-108, Abb. 1-12.
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- aporia
- black-veined whites
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http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/butterflies-in-the-time-of-dinosaurs-with-nary-a-flower-in-sight/# Interesting read
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- Butterflies
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Hello, I am new to this forum. I'm an evolutionary ecologist, and used to working on living organisms, but this is so well-preserved it might as well be alive! What I'm nearly sure you're looking at is a fossilized pupating butterfly (chrysalis). You can see the silk lines it attached to the leaf, as well as much of the leaf itself. This would be what one would call a "pre-pupa", but it's already starting to look very chrysalis-ish. It certainly looks papilionid, perhaps lycaenid based on size and morphology? What strikes me is both the rarity and incredible beauty of this find if it is what I think it is. Any thoughts?? Is this the only chrysalis known in the fossil record? It's from Baltic amber, straight from the mines to an collector's hands (and now my own.) Looking forward to replies.