Glasswing
Greta oto
Glasswing · Carlsbad · 7 March 2026
A Glasswing in the butterfly house, a butterfly of the cloud forests of Central America from Mexico to Panama, where it flies in the shade of the understory and is nearly invisible doing it.
The wings are genuinely transparent. The scales that give most butterflies their colour are reduced here to a scattered few, leaving bare, glass-clear membrane between the veins, and the transparency is thought to work as camouflage in its own right: a predator has much less solid shape to fix on mid-flight.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
Every photograph comes with notes on what it is.
Selected
Favourite shots. Filter by subject, or .
Places
Everything, by where it was taken.
Species
Larger catalogue of photos organized by species of animal or plant.
Catalogue
Every photograph, newest first. Narrow it by period, place or species; the three work together.
Updates
Coming soon. Sign up at the bottom of the page for updates.