Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Pleasing Visits From The Jacintha Egg-fly

Of late, the Jacintha Egg-fly (Hypolimnas bolina jacintha) have descended on my garden and designated it as one of their playgrounds. They fluttered in and out, taking sweet 'tea breaks' on flowers and breathers on foliage and other assorted objects.


Love is like a butterfly: It goes where it pleases and it pleases wherever it goes. ~ Anonymous

 
One of these lovely butterflies decided to be adventurous and fluttered onto the blades of a toy wind-mill.

Here it spread its wings, displaying its beautiful blue-fringed white markings, indicating that its a male. The bright yellow bells of Tecoma stans beckon in the background.

Yellow Tecoma stans with red Alpinia purpurata in the background.

The reticulated leaf of Pseuderanthemum reticulatum under full sunshine made an attractive landing pad

 for this male Hypolimnas bolina jacintha to chill out. With the wings folded up, it looked completely different; just brown and white colouring without the the bluish tinge.



Nearby, another male Jacintha Egg-fly settled on the leaves of a Hibiscus bush, H. rosa-sinensis 'snowflake'.
The male Great Egg Fly can easily be distinguished from the females by the circular markings on the upper side of its wings.

It is rather difficult to differentiate from the underside.


It then fluttered to the leaves of Bauhenia kockiana. The red buds of Ruellias elegans can be seen in the background.


An inflorescence of Bauhenia kockiana. 


 Another one of these butterflies landed on the leaf of Ochna Kirkii. Here it perched unperturbly and actually ignored my presence.

Ochna Kirkii aka Mickey Mouse plant.

When it got tired of verdant surroundings, it flew to a wooden post for a change of ambience.


This female Hypolimnas bolina is taking a breather on the leaves of ...


 Quisqualis indica aka Rangoon creeper.

 The egg-like markings are absent on the females.


 
Sometimes, when at rest, it slowly opens and closes its wings.

They tend to take a respite from the scorching sun by hanging upside down on the underside of leaves. A favourite hangout is the Baphia nitida which is a border or hedge plant in the garden.

The leaves of Baphia nitida have a light pandan plant () fragrance. However there is no discernible scent from the flower.


It even landed on the dustpan.


This must be a very curious female Jacintha Egg-fly!

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis 'snowflake' is a flower much favoured by butterflies.

 

22 comments:

  1. hi.. I experienced a big black butterfly landing on my pants .. I was wearing black pants at that time.. and I also experienced the feeling of good friendship with this jacintha, it landed very comfortly on a leave near me..quite a long time..

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    1. This is really good for you :) It must have sense your benevolence and had full trust in you, knowing that no harm will come its way. I believe critters can sense positive or negative vibes.

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  2. Motyle są cudowne, a pierwszy mnie zachwycił. Pozdrawiam.
    Butterflies are wonderful, and the first amazed me. Yours.

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    1. The first is the more flamboyant male while the one on the leaf of the Rangoon creeper is the female (without the white patches ringed in blue).

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  3. Lovely pictures of an amazing butterfly. I love the blue around the white markings. It almost looks as though the photographs are over-exposed (but I know they are not!). I would love to see one of these in the wild.

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    1. I remember seeing this butterfly in one of your posts. I think some of these butterflies must have been bred in my garden,a few generations perhaps.

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    2. Yes, you identified a picture of the underside of one of these for me that I had seen at Butterfly World. I didn't see it fly, or the upper-side though! I also don't count those that I see there as being proper sightings!!

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    3. Yes, I concur with you in this respect. Even though the butterflies are easily available for photography, somehow its different. Having said that, I must say that you have some very nice shots there.

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  4. I think your garden has the most beautiful butterflies! I love that blue fringed with white markings one, pretty!

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    1. That is the male Jacintha Egg-fly. With the wings folded up, they look different. The underpart is completely different from the upper side.

      The females have small blue spots on the anterior border while the small white spots border the remaing borders of the wings

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  5. That's so many beautiful butterflies! I never seen the blue and white one! They are so lovely! Your garden must be very beautiful!

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    1. Actually they are quite common in Malaysian gardens. You probably have them in your garden too but must have missed them. My garden is not formally landscaped but looks a bit on the wild side :)

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  6. I love it when butterflies ignore my presence, the only way I can ever get a focused picture :) These photos are so beautiful, I especially love the one with the butterfly upside down and had no idea they did this to get out of the sun!

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    1. In the afternoon, it can be very hot in Malaysia. Though butterflies are commonly seen fluttering and basking in the sun, they usually so so in the morning. By afternoon I often see them suspended from below leaves.

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  7. We also have that even in this 'larva-food-challenged' environment, but they are so fast and difficult to shoot because the conditions are suited for them to fly hurriedly. When the rains come, then a lot of butterflies will emerge and i will again be happy as they get slower, and there will be a lot.

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    1. In contrast, we have rainfalls year round. Wish we can re-deploy some of the rainclouds to your side. The day can be extremely hot, then by late afternoon, sheets of rain will splash down, causing flash floods here and there.

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  8. Your garden is a paradise for the critters. I like to watch butterflies flitting one flower to another, though caterpillars give me a creep. In your blog I’ve seen many new species to me and Jacintha Egg-fly is one of them. They are so beautiful - I love the deep blue color and white.

    I’ve had a difficulty to reach this blog since you joined Google+. I put your name on the search engine and found this blog again.

    Yoko

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  9. Hi Yoko, Thanks for the feedback on Google+. I first heard about this access problem recently from another fellow blogger, a Malaysian residing in Japan. I'm trying to extricate myself from the situation.

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  10. Such gorgeous butterflies! The colors are always so fascinating to me. They are like pretty flying flowers.

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    1. The various permutation of colours is mind-boggling!

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  11. Also at you I see beautiful macros of this butterfly. Beautiful details and beautiful colors and sharpness.

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    1. Thanks Helma for visiting my blog and the kind words too.

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