The other day, I was out and about and noticed a lot of cars in the lot at the Extension Demonstration Garden on Florida Avenue.  It turned out to be the local Master Gardeners having a plant and cutting sale.  I didn’t buy anything but did notice that the garden had loads of butterflies flitting about.  While I was chasing them about, I discovered this Milkweed Assassin Bug (  Zelus longipes ) which had managed to snag a Long-Legged Flew (note past tense).  The Long-legged flies are tiny colorful and fast.  I guess the Assassin Bug was just a little quicker though.

But, they weren’t what caught my eye.  It was the butterflies.  This Mangrove Skipper ( Phocides pigmalion ) usually has more blue on it’s wings but, this one seems to have gotten some wear.

Another Skipper (Brazilian?) was specializing in the red flowers today as was a Cloudless Sulphur ( Phoebis sennae ).  Click on the pictures for a larger view and compare the antennae and you can see the typical little ‘crochet hook’ at the end of the skippers antenna.

As another comparison, this Moth Yellow-collared Scape moth ( Cisseps fulvicollis ) shows the combed fernlike antennae of the moth.

 For the technically minded, these were all taken with a Nikon D90 using a 105mm f2.8 VR Micro-Nikkor and an SB-800 flash mounted on the camera.