Like shooting fish in a barrel!

Today we went to the Detroit Zoo with Clare’s mom. We saw some of the wonderful variety of life-on-Earth — including a couple new “bugs” identified at bugguide.net — but the highlight was easily the Butterfly Garden, http://www.detroitzoo.org/habitats/butterfly-garden
Getting high-quality photos of butterflies was so easy, hence the title above!

I don’t know what species of butterfly this is, but I cannot post it to BAMONA because the Zoo orders its butterflies — 250 pupae every week among 35 species! — from ranchers in *Central* America. (So I guess I need to check for a web site “BAMOCA”!)

During our visit, we got to know 7-year old Casey, and her grandpa, Gary. Casey & I were persistently following the most impressive of the butterflies, Common Blue Morphos, but I never did get a good shot of one with its wings open. But the teamwork with Casey was lots of fun and that had to be today’s post. This is an unknown butterfly species that landed on Casey’s open fingers.

Sept. 30 update!! Thanks to MaryBeth’s comment on a post by Joyce — http://365project.org/sparkleplenty1/365/2012-09-30 — I figured out that this butterfly is cataloged at BAMONA because this species occasionally strays into Texas. It’s an
“Erato Heliconian” (Heliconius erato); see http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species/Heliconius-erato

For those who may be helped by these identified insects, we saw
» Blue Dasher (dragonfly), http://bugguide.net/node/view/686704
» Large Milkweed Bug, http://bugguide.net/node/view/686694

A year ago (“Car-of-the-Month, August”): http://365project.org/rhoing/365/2011-08-02

[Joyce Wells]

Beautiful shot, Thom! I love the way Casey's hand is extended, and it leads your eyes down to the butterfly Such beautiful color!

[Michelle]

Awwww this is stunning.. Favd

[Heidi]

Nice to have photo days like these!! Great shot!

[Thom Mitchell]

@sparkleplenty1 Thanks, Joyce! It was definitely a highlight of our trip north!

@michelleyoung Aww, thanks for a fav, Michelle. I have to get to your site now that I'm almost caught up from being gone!

@chauncygirl Thanks, Heidi!