It took me some time to identify the butterflies, and possibly one moth, on a set of stamps I acquired recently for this theme. There are 6 in the set , but I have only 5 of them all issued on 23 May 1966.
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| Czechoslovakia |
I recognised this as a swallowtail immediately. The Czech name is at the bottom of the stamp and its Latin name down the right hand side. Apparently it is known as the Scarce Swallowtail.
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| Clouded Yellow |
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| Todler Red |
Despite what may seem a strange appearance photos on the internet clearly show differences on the wing, with the purple colouration covering part or all of one wing.
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| Jason Red-eyed Parnassius Apollo |
Photos of the next insect at rest made me think it is a moth.
I hadn't found a common name for the Panaxia Dominula until a few moments ago. Apparently it is a Scarlet Tiger Moth.
8 comments:
Hi Bob - wonderful selection of butterflies ... love the Todler Red - and am glad you told us about the two coloured aspect ...
I haven't seen many yet - but expect they'll be around .. cheers Hilary
what a great set! are these CTO or just used stamps?
Wow, I've never seen different colours on the left and right hand sides of a butterfly. Surely a rare find!
What an interesting variation in the Todler Red, I always think of nature being symmetrical, wrongly it turns out.
Some fascinating butterflies (and moth) that I've never even heard of before. The lack of color symmetry on the Todler Red seems very unusual.
But I'm impressed that you identified them!
Beautiful stamps!
By the way, I think the Todler Red in real is symmetrical.
According to the Dutch wiki on the Todler Red (Apatura Ilia, in Dutch named 'weerschijnvlinder' = 'reflection / glint butterfly') the purple on the wings of the males shines like pearl-shell, and thus, depending on which side the light comes, can 'change'.
You can see a picture of this asymmetric shining on/from wings of his cousin, the purple emperor, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatura_iris , an "iridescent purple-blue sheen" they name it there.
I think it a clever solution of the stamp creator, as it must be a big puzzle to picture both colours in one butterfly in one stamp.
Thanks Heleen for the additional info on the Todler Red. The photos I saw on the Czech site had no details of the kind you describe; just shows how careful you need to be during internet research.
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