Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: Owl butterfly

These are large, rather fancy butterflies, and I liked its striped eyes - but not so much its furry body. Taken on 25 September 2012 in the ENMAX Conservatory at the Calgary Zoo. The tropical butterfly season is over now. Once again, the staff and volunteers did a superb job of putting on a great display of tropical plants and butterflies for us over the summer! I know that I, for one, appreciate this so much - a wonderful chance to see and photograph things I would otherwise never see. "Butterflies in the genus Caligo are commonly called owl butterflies, after their huge eyespots, which resemble owls' eyes. Owl butterflies are found in the rainforests and secondary forests of Mexico, Central, and South America. Owl butterflies are very large, 65–200 mm (2.6–7.9 in), and fly only a few metres at a time, so avian predators have little difficulty in following them to their settling place. However, the butterflies preferentially fly in dusk, when few avian predators are around. The Latin name may possibly refer to their active periods. Caligo means darkness." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owl_butterfly

Well, up close with an Owl butterfly : ) These are large, rather fancy butterflies, and I liked its striped eyes - but not so much its furry body. Taken on 6 October 2012 in the ENMAX Conservatory at the Calgary Zoo. The tropical butterfly season is almost over now. Once again, the staff and volunteers did a superb job of putting on a great display of tropical plants and butterflies again for us over the summer! I know that I, for one, appreciate this so much - a wonderful chance to see and photograph things I would otherwise never see. "Butterflies in the genus Caligo are commonly called owl butterflies, after their huge eyespots, which resemble owls' eyes. Owl butterflies are found in the rainforests and secondary forests of Mexico, Central, and South America. Owl butterflies are very large, 65–200 mm (2.6–7.9 in), and fly only a few metres at a time, so avian predators have little difficulty in following them to their settling place. However, the butterflies preferentially fly in dusk, when few avian predators are around. The Latin name may possibly refer to their active periods. Caligo means darkness." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owl_butterfly

This is one of the huge, tropical Owl butterflies seen in the ENMAX Conservatory at the Calgary Zoo. You don't often see one from the topside with its wings open. Taken on 10 September 2011, not recently.

These enormous, tropical Owl Butterflies perch with their wings closed. However, when I called in at the Zoo yesterday afternoon, I was so lucky to see this one actually open its wings for a few moments. Unfortunately, I had to use flash and it wasn't until I downloaded my photos to my computer, that I realized the flash had caused two wide, white stripes, ha. Oh, well, I will give you an idea of how amazing these butterflies are, both topside and underside. Thanks to bayucca, who gave the following comment: "The white stripes are NOT from the flash! It is typical for Caligo atreus, this wonderful owl has some white stripes on the forewings. So you can continue with using flash for butterflies. Sometimes it really helps with accentuated colors."

These Owl Butterflies are native to Central and South America. Their name is derived from the eyespots on their wings, which are used to scare away predators. This was photographed at the Calgary Zoo Butterfly House, which has recently been renovated and looks beautiful.