September 2nd, 2012. It was the Labor Day (US) holiday
weekend so we took the opportunity to make an overnight trip into the
Chattahoochee National Forest. After making our way out of the Coopers Creek Wildlife
Management Area, we drove up to Blue Ridge for the night. We retraced our way
up the Noontootla River Valley through the Blue Ridge Wildlife Management Area
as we had in mid-December 2011 but, instead of driving southwest, we drove
north on Winding Stair Gap and Rock Creek Roads.
We
caught our first glimpse of a Great Spangled Fritillary a couple of months ago
in the Wilson Shoals Wildlife Management Area but didn’t manage to get a
photograph. So we were on the lookout for them on this weekend. Great SpangledFritillaries are more widely distributed in the eastern United States than are
the Diana Fritillaries and their range in Georgia extends further down into the
state than does the Diana Fritillary. The Great Spangled Fritillary is another
‘big’ fritillary – about the same size as the female Diana Fritillary or a
swallowtail. There are nine subpsecies of Speyeria cybele and the color
patterns differ quite a lot. Speyeria cybele subsp. cybele is the subspecies
that occurs in Georgia.
We were rewarded with our first
sighting of a Great Spangled Fritillary as we were driving along Winding Stair
Road. The butterfly was…
Feeding on a very tall thistle in
the shade. This photograph was taken with zoom and flash. The butterfly has
reflective, metallic spots, similar to the Gulf Fritillary, on the underside of
the wing that appear grey due to the angle at which the light hit the spots.
We found a second fritillary
‘sharing’ the thistle flowers with the Diana Fritillary near the fish hatchery
on Rock Creek Road. Thistle flowers are a magnet for butterflies at this time
of year.
It was hectic on the thistles - competing with the Diana Fritillaries - and
this fritillary was taking a ‘time out’ on a nearby tree before returning to
the thistles…
Right side up, and …
head down, and then…
A couple of nice poses for the
camera.
Back to the business of eating.
It was great to finally get a good look and some photographs of this butterfly.
Click
on an image to view a closer image
Identification
resources:
Butterflies
and Moths of North America: Speyeria cybele (Great Spangled Fritillary)
Distribution:
Butterflies
and Moths of North America: Speyeria cybele (Great Spangled Fritillary)
United
States Geological Survey, Butterflies of North America: Speyeria cybele (Great Spangled Fritillary)
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