Female Diana Fritillary Butterfly

This beautiful female butterfly was perched on an ultraviolet wildflower on the side of an old dirt road winding through a deciduous forest near Cloudland Canyon in Georgia. She is the most beautiful of all the fritillaries. She is a real specimen of gorgeous delight that we in the southernmost zone of its range are treated to every once in a wonderful while when we are most observant. Nevertheless, when seen many mistake them for more common butterflies such as “the Eastern Black Swallowtail.” Often you will see them feeding on flowers that have an ultraviolet color because their vision allows such colors to be readily apparent to them.

 

 Female Diana Fritillary Butterfly Original Oil Painting

Some scientists think that the colors that attract us to these marvelous creatures are even more attractive to other butterflies. Butterflies can see more colors than we humans can while other aspects of their vision are not as good as human’s. They are very near-sighted. From afar, other butterflies are only fluttering blurs of color.

A butterfly’s ultraviolet coloring even affects their sexual communications. “Ultraviolet colors are often the distinguishing feature between males and females of a species or between species.” Unapparent to us often one of the sexes will have a lot “more ultraviolet reflectance” than the other.

The female Diana Fritillary is “black above with outer third iridescent blue on hind-wing and bluish-white spots on forewing; below, forewing black with whitish and black spots, hind wing brownish-black with white postmedian and marginal lines.”

This was a very fun and interesting painting for me to do as I learned much about the butterfly that I previously knew so little about. Little treasures gliding about like delicate jewels of nature. The paint is much thicker than you might think as I built the background up with many layers. The texture of the flower and the butterfly pop off the page in spots and blend into the surroundings in others. This leads your eye on a pleasant journey through the beautiful world of this wondrous butterfly.

I really loved this wildflower as well. My fiancée calls it a bratty flower. It definitely has lots of attitude. Simply structured flowers such as this one with lots of character work well with my painting technique as I can use thick buttery paint to show a flower’s character.

Interesting Butterfly Links:

Callaway Gardens Butterfly Center.

Make your own butterfly feeder.

I referenced National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Butterflies by Robert Michael Pyle and The Butterfly Book by Donald and Lillian Stokes/Ernest Williams. The Kaufman Focus Guides “Butterflies of North America” by Jim P. Brock and Kenn Kaufman were a big help at the first in identifying this female Diana Fritillary. I would highly recommend the book to anyone who studies butterflies.

Thank you so much for stopping by Boyd Greene Art for a browse.