Butterfly adults have long coiled rostrums that they use to suck nectar out of flowers. I had to take many photos but this shot was the best one I could take to show the use of the sipping rostrum.
Did you know that when the butterfly’s wings are tattered, it comes from age and it means that the butterfly is old? This is a shichimicho ka or butterfly in the Family Lycaenidae. The butterflies show beautiful green or blue colors on the top side of their wings but have drab white and grey spotted patterns on the underside.
Shichimocho is a highly diverse family. There are more than 6,000 identified species around the world comprising about 40% of all butterflies. In Japan alone, more than 70 of the 230 identified species belong in this family. They are hard to identify because the variations of butterflies in each location are so very slight.
NATURE IN JAPAN 