Photos by Marley Nix/COMM 1318
Photography student Marley Nix found this little guy outside the Communications/English Building on the South Plains College Levelland campus this morning. She says it didn’t look good lying on its side on the sidewalk, so she put it on a tree trunk.
She checked on it several times, and wondered what kind it was before she set her camera on closeup to snap photos of it.
South Plains College Professor of Biology Megan Keith says it looks like a Gulf Fritillary also known as a Passion Butterfly.
“In this area, the primary host for their larva (caterpillars) is the passion flower vine,” says Kristin Bingham, associate professor and chairperson of the SPC biology department. “They are here mid-summer to fall and then migrate south.”
According to texasbutterflyranch.com, a site dedicated to articles and info about the tiny, winged insects, generally butterflies won’t fly when temperatures are less than 55 or 60 degrees.
It was chilly early this morning. Once Nix and her classmate placed the butterfly in the sun for a few minutes, it flew away.
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