I met some entomologists looking for Chestnut Tiger Butterflies (asagi-madara) in our local insect park (hotaru-no-sato), but it was a windy day and pretty cool so they said that they didn’t expect to find any. The reason they were looking is that it’s part of an annual “catch and release” programme to determine the migration paths of this species. It’s amazing how far they fly — coming all the way down to Kyushu from Nagano. Munakata seems to be a popular stopping off point for them.
Anyway, by chance (and because I was looking!), I found four of these butterflies during my walk along a disused mountain road, shielded from the wind. I saw four but only managed to get photos of two of them.
Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae
Paranatica sita
Chestnut Tiger Butterfly
Japanese name = asagi-madara
