Cracker butterfly
Hamadryas sp.
Cracker butterfly · Carlsbad · 7 March 2026
A cracker, the Hamadryas group, wings spread flat on a red cloth in the butterfly house. In the forests of Central and South America these butterflies rest head-down on tree trunks, wings open, and feed on sap and rotting fruit rather than flowers.
The red cloth is a mixed blessing: it shows the whole upperside, but it throws red light into the pale patches, so the cream band near the forewing tip reads as peach. Black ground, a tracery of pale blue loops and crescents, and a thorax spotted with white - most likely a Red Cracker, which has a bright red hindwing beneath, but I've left it at genus. Crackers are named for the noise the males make in flight, a sharp clicking produced by the wings.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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