NY Man charged with smuggling birdwings

[mothman55]

I seem to remember reading that males of O. priamus poseidon are orange immediately on emergence from the pupa, and turn green as the wings dry. Can anyone confirm this?

Adam.

I think you may be right Adam, in some cases. When I raised Cairn's birdwings, I do remember one having a reddish orange sheen over the green just after emergence. It soon disappeared once dry. I have seen a photo of this on the internet some time ago, and when I saw the photo it reminded me of what I had seen. I remember hoping it would retain this colour and be something very special, but alas, it soon disappeared. I just did an internet search looking for this photo which displayed this phenomenon, but I can't find it. I reared a number of males, and only recall seeing this once. Perhaps it only lasts for a few minutes during the drying and as they typically have their wings folded while drying, possibly it would only be visible if they were disturbed and opened their wings briefly.

[eurytides]

Immediately after eclosion, there might be a tiny amount of moisture on the surface of the scales. This could affect the wavelengths of light that constructive/destructively interfere, altering the colour we see, like the shifting rainbow on the surface of a soap bubble.

[papiliotheona]

The laws are stupid, and Limmer is stupider for deliberately breaking them and helping to give us all even more of a black eye. Two things can be right at the same time!

[Chuck]

The laws are stupid, and Limmer is stupider for deliberately breaking them and helping to give us all even more of a black eye. Two things can be right at the same time!

That is a truism.

I had the "You can be right, or you can be happy" talk with my daughter when she was about 8 YO. A teacher had taken points off a paper, saying my daughter was wrong. Of course she wasn't wrong. And in fact 210,000 Google returns backed us up. But we had The Talk, and I warned her about the ramifications of being right. Yet she elected to school her teacher, and as a result the teacher hated her the rest of the year. Limmer may have been right, but I don't think he's happy.