Malachite - for my good friend, Phil!

These Malachite butterflies in the ENMAX Conservatory at the Calgary Zoo are just so beautiful, both the underside and the topside. Have to get ready soon to go off to do our Snake Monitoring and after that, must decide where to go. Just too many places and things to check out, sometimes I find it SO hard to choose : ) So often, it's the weather that helps with that decision, of course.

"Siproeta stelenes, commonly known as the Malachite, is a neotropical brush-footed butterfly (family Nymphalidae). The malachite has large wings that are black and brilliant green or yellow-green on the uppersides and light brown and olive green on the undersides. It is named for the mineral malachite, which is similar in color to the bright green on the butterfly's wings. The wingspread is typically between 8.5 and 10 cm (3.3 and 3.9 in). The malachite is found throughout Central and northern South America, where it is one of the most common butterfly species. Its distribution extends as far north as southern Texas and the tip of Florida, to Cuba, as subspecies S. s. insularis (Holland, 1916), and south to Brazil.

Adults feed on flower nectar, rotting fruit, dead animals, and bat dung. Females lay eggs on the new leaves of plants in the Acanthaceae family, especially ruellia. The larvae are horned, spiny black caterpillars with red markings." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siproeta_stelenes