2 images of mating monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) - Page 1 of 3...
<Photo in close-up by Wolf Peter Weber of a pair of monarch butterflies mating on the ground of a meadow. Wing of female monarch like a
John Michael Pyle’s account of monarch butterflies mating was still with me when I landed
a scoop of sorts, one afternoon in early June 2000, while trying to get pictures of goldfinches in
the Ellis Bay vicinity about 20 miles north of St. Louis, Missouri... Reading pages 2 & 3, and 248
of CHASING MONARCHS (Houghton Mifflin), by said author, one might appreciate how much
I felt rewarded coming upon a similar experience, one very close to his description...
I had photographed them on the ground, barely visible through the meadow’s growth, and then
was
alert and lucky enough to not lose them from view, from there to a branch in a nearby tree...
Just see how the inside of the female’s wings resembles the “pale rags” that Pyle had described.
<Close-up photo by Wolf Peter Weber of a pair of monarch butterflies still connected after their mating, now in a tree.>
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