Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Image:Image-Heliconius ismenius 2 Richard Bartz.jpg

Heliconius ismenius

 * Reason:For those of you that don't like butterflies, don't worry, we have only 66*2 - 20 = 112 FPs to go to catch up with the number of bird FPs and remedy systemic bias (because there are twice as many butterfly species as there are bird species). I'll try to start nominating some other insects as well, so the bugs and beetles (the latter making up 25% of known species) don't feel hard done by.
 * Articles this image appears in:Heliconius ismenius
 * Creator:Richard Bartz


 * Support as nominator Samsara (talk • contribs) 12:04, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment Can you ID the butterfly from this photo? Would a shot of the open wings be more useful or does it not matter for this species? --liquidGhoul (talk) 13:18, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * As you probably know, the Heliconiids can be tricky due to the large number of morphs for each species, and complex mimicry relationships. I went with trusting the photographer on this one. The identification is consistent with others from reliable sources on the web, e.g. There are mimics for this morph, e.g. .  I'm not qualified to ID Heliconiids, and some people who work with them have also told me they don't feel qualified. A lot of people seem to trust the label that comes down the supply chain. I'm not aware of mimicry at the pupa stage, so perhaps we can trust the live butterfly exhibits of the world to get it right (where I think this was taken). AFAIK, they don't typically stock mimics for the same morph, because visitors like to be able to tell them apart. When showing mimics, they pick the less perfect ones. I'm afraid that once you start doubting the ID on these species, we may have to take a whole lot of them off their articles, because none of them in their image descriptions point out the characters that were used to key them. I've checked a whole bunch of them, and they are consistent with others on the web down to minute details. That said, consistent with expectation, I did find a small number on flickr etc. that were very likely incorrect. If you have a field guide handy, I'm happy to be educated. Samsara (FA • FP) 13:45, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Wow, thanks for the length reply. I don't really know too much about butterflies, so I'm glad you verified for me. I had assumed that if you can't ID by pattern (which seems to be the case), then it would probably be some microscopic morphological feature, which is usually the case with insects. As such, it would be unreasonable to expect such a characteristic in a photo. Support. --liquidGhoul (talk) 04:46, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Weak Oppose Quite nice in terms of sharpness and the dew, but I really dislike the portrait aspect ratio - definitely should have been shot in landscape; and it was taken at an unfortunate angle resulting in a leaf cutting off it's front legs. Also proboscis is motion blurred --Fir0002 10:17, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Weak Support Nice Bokeh. -- Laitche (talk) 14:07, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Neutral per nom + Fir0002. de Bivort 17:44, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Weak oppose Slightly blurry, and the composition isn't great. Juliancolton (Talk) 15:29, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Neutral —αἰτίας •'discussion'• 12:01, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Weak oppose per blurry proboscis & cut off leg. Besides that, however, it's an amazing image.  нмŵוτн τ  02:13, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

MER-C 12:05, 22 February 2008 (UTC)