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Thursday, September 2, 2010

Spotted Eyes

Sometimes they look right at you and you don't know it at all. Is this butterfly looking at me? Maybe. Maybe not. But I at least got a good look at the butterfly. It was those magnetic eyes that drew me in. Those spotted eyes. Spotted?

Yup. They're almost too easy to see in most of my pictures today. I showed the top picture first so you could get a good look right into the face of a butterfly. Now this is what I call alien! We think of them as flying flowers, but what do you think of them after seeing that face?

Honestly, it's not really an unattractive face. It's just so very different from what we would expect from a human or most other mammals. It does have hair though. Hair is something you wouldn't expect from an insect, but a large amount of them have it.

I think most of us think of mammals when we think of hair. Reptiles don't have it. Birds are very close, but they have feathers. Amphibians? No hair either. What about fish? You already know that one. They do not have hair, but they have scales. Wait. So do many reptiles.

Scales and feathers, and many other types of coverings like that are thought to be in some way related to hair. So even with that alien face of a butterfly, they are a lot more like us than we think. We are all living things.

But enough of those random thoughts. The picture above is how the butterfly was when I was able to first get close to it. It flew from leaf to leaf,but it never felt the need to get too far away from me. I actually had to lift the camera over my head to get this shot. There were too many tall plants in the way.

And I was so surprised when I walked around those tall plants, and the butterfly was still there waiting for me. Oh sure, it had flown to another leaf, more than once! But there it was waiting for me there. How many times have you stood so close to a butterfly. They almost always fly away before you can get within more than a few paces.

And this butterfly wasn't alone! There was at least one other. But I was still able to walk around this butterfly to get pictures from almost any direction I liked. The only thing preventing me from all directions was the thick shrub it was sitting on.

It flew up into the air one more time, but still came back down to an accessible spot. I thought about getting a few more pictures of the butterfly with the spotted eyes, but I decided that it had been generous enough and it was time for me to move on. And so I left the butterfly with the spotted eyes in peace right where I found it.


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18 comments:

  1. Love the pictures. I think the eyes are quite fascinating.

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  2. Very interesting. I remember this butterfly/moth also had spotted eyes. :)

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  3. Quite interesting, this butterfly. I've never looked one in the face and this one really has a nice face. I wonder what it was thinking while you were there taking its picture.

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  4. You have said it very well: a flying flower.

    It has invited you.

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  5. Butterfly eyes are unique. They are compound spherical structures, each comprised of thousands of omatidea (or sensors) that are focused, individually, in every possible direction. Collectively these sensors form an image that allows the butterfly to see things, likely hazily, in almost all directions.

    Bill:www.wildramblings.com

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  6. Bill has it right, I wonder what they percieve with these many facets. I wondered if the spots were pupils.Great capture.Liked your comment how our world change such as your old neighborhood. Where I started school, my yard would be in an ER.

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  7. this butterfly is hard for me to capture somehow, it always keep on flying, but you got it wonderfully and love the eyes.

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  8. wonderful photos, what a beauty. I'd never thought about the eyes before.

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  9. These are amazing photos...I had never realised that a butterfly had such 'buggy' eyes before!!

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  10. Butterflies are SO hard to get photos of. They just keep flittering around and never sit still long for me! This green beauty with the spotted eyes is lovely. I've never seen one like it before. We have white cabbage butterflies but greenies don't live here. Thank you for sharing your nature once again.

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  11. cute little friend- was it this greenish or more yellow?

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  12. Great photos Ratty! That Butterfly sure blends in nicely with the leaves. The eyes are fascinating on any of those little insects.

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  13. she is all-green and the eyes look hairy, my first time again to see beautiful creatures like this.

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  14. I love the detail you've been getting in these latest shots! It's almost like I could reach out and bat at it!

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  15. Insect eyes are fascinating, I have never seen one with spotted eyes before. Great shots Ratty, getting up close with the insects is always exciting.

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  16. Wow..I can see the dots in its eyes! Wonderful close up with this butterfly, Ratty!

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  17. Cute little face with amazing details. The photos you are capturing lately are fantastic.

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  18. Wow.. my first time seeing a green butterfly, and a one with big spotted eyes! Quite a beauty in its own unusual way and a very sociable one nevertheless. ^__^

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