White Admiral
Limenitis arthemis arthemis · Butterflies
White Admirals puddling
Adirondacks, 4 July 2020
White Admirals puddling on damp ground in the Adirondacks in July, taking up moisture and the minerals dissolved in it. It is a butterfly of the northern woods, from the Great Lakes to Maine and across Canada, and the caterpillars feed on birch and aspen.
Almost always males: the salts go towards making sperm packets that also nourish the female at mating. This is the white-banded form of a species that further south, where it hybridises with the viceroy's mimicry complex, appears as the dark red-spotted purple. Here in the Adirondacks, well north of that overlap, the bold white band is the only form on the wing.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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