New Butterfly

Remember that mystery chrysalis that K2 found in her garden?    We thought it might be a pipevine swallowtail.

We were wrong.

We kept it for a couple of weeks and then one morning, lo and behold, we found this.

We recognized it immediately!   A Great Spangled Fritillary.

We get loads of these here.   And their caterpillars are black, with orange spikes - very similar to the pipevine swallowtail caterpillars.  

The butterflies have silver - silver! - spots on the back of their hind wings.

Here you can see the black spots on the back of the forewings - just showing. 

It took this one a while to dry off and take its bearings.

And we were waiting impatiently, because we wanted to see if it was a male or female.

K2 was the lucky one to be next to the camera when it finally opened.

We think this one is a male.   The females are much darker. 

Note the bottom edges of the wings.   See the fine black line and the little spots?   That's indicative of a Great Spangled instead of an Aphrodite.    The Aphrodites have a very heavy dark line along the bottoms of the forewings that tapers off on the hindwings.   Now you know.