264 upvotes, 3 direct replies (showing 3)
View submission: What a great story
Well
No way both of those little dudes aren't dead.
Comment by Muchashca at 16/10/2018 at 02:33 UTC
56 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I can't speak towards the frog, but I have a decent amount of experience studying and interacting with butterflies. That said, most of my experience is in North American butterflies, so I'm not completely sure on my ID.
My best guess about the species of this butterfly is Tawny Coster[1], a species the Wikipedia page says has been very successful, and can be found in "India, Sri Lanka to Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam".
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acraea_terpsicore
The frog definitely looks dead to me, by the way none of its feet are touching the branch and the way it doesn't seem to change its pose at all between the pictures.
The butterfly, on the other hand, I believe is alive (judging by its two distinct, natural standing positions in the two pictures and the extreme difficulty of gluing an insects legs twice). There's a period of a few hours after a butterfly leaves its chrysalis when it's unable to fly, so you can pick it up and place it wherever you like without it moving anywhere quickly. There are quite a few butterfly farms in the countries mentioned above - it's well within the realm of possibility that the photographer coordinated with one of them to obtain a chrysalis or recently-emerged butterfly for this picture, then hopefully let it fly off when it was ready.
Comment by andor3333 at 16/10/2018 at 05:49 UTC
10 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Comment by Mystaes at 16/10/2018 at 00:59 UTC
-4 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Well... actually monarch butterflies are quite poisonous. So it’s *possible* the froggo just didn’t eat him because he didn’t want to have a bad time.
That said... the fact the pose doesn’t really change doesn’t help dispute your conclusion.