These are not butterflies. They're not even something intended to look like butterflies. They are Devonian era Brachiopod fossils, but for reasons that seem pretty obvious to me, they're sometimes known as Stone Butterflies.
There is a conservation area here in southwestern Ontario where the public can go to hunt for fossils. You're not allowed to dig anything, but because of the geology of the area, a lot of fossils can be found on the surface and every visitor is allowed to take one (just one!) home. We visited and I found the little one first. Chris didn't find any, so my second find, the bigger "butterfly" is officially his.
When my tags for this round of the tag challenge came up as "butterfly" and "stone," I thought of these "Stone Butterflies" right away. I already entered a photo of an actual butterfly sitting on stones, so this one is a bonus entry! It also kind of works for today's June word/phrase, "Find a Butterfly." It was a rainy day here, so no finding actual butterflies today.
