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PLEASE WATCH YOUR FEET FOR QUAIL.

UD has never reckoned with that set of instructions before, and she probably never will again.  But as you enter the Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory, that’s what you’re asked to do.

These tubbies are bobbing about underfoot as you walk the butterfly path, and you don’t notice them because you’re taken up with the psychedelic flittering all ’round your head.  Everywhere immense and profuse lepidoptera, with the usual insane range of colors and patterns, buzz you.

No touching, of course, and sometimes you’re close to stepping on them.  You’re not even supposed to reach out to them, but it’s impossible not to.

The same music they play when UD‘s at a spa getting a facial pipes along as you pause at a pond and look at koi. 

The whole thing’s way zen, and UD kept going back in, flashing the little red butterfly stamp on her hand at the ticket taker and circling the path.

Margaret Soltan, March 4, 2009 12:58PM
Posted in: snapshots from key west

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6 Responses to “PLEASE WATCH YOUR FEET FOR QUAIL.”

  1. RJO Says:

    I can’t make out the scientific name. Is there a larger version of the image?

    (Nabokov’s office at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology was on the 4th floor corridor in the entomology department. Mine, quite a bit later, was on the 5th floor corridor right above.)

  2. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Couldn’t find a bigger image. It’s Parnassius Something Nab.

    Nab I take it is Nabokov — this I gather is a butterfly named after him… Of course, given that it’s Nabokov, this could also be a fantasy butterfly…

  3. RJO Says:

    The "Nab." after the name indicates that he is the author of the name, as we would say — the person who first described the species and gave it that formal designation. But whether it’s a real species or a made up one I don’t know. There is a long tradition within systematics of specialist humor based on made-up technical descriptions, the most famous example being the snouters (Rhinogradentia). It’s sort of like P.D.Q. Bach — fun for the lay reader/listener, but really fun if you know what’s being parodied.

    Parnassius is the Apollos. Quite beautiful butterflies.

  4. Steven H. Cullinane Says:

    Larger image:
    http://www.tajan.com/pdf/2004/4471.pdf
    It’s "Parnassius concinnus."
    "Concinnus" means "neatly arranged, elegant."
    (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Concinnous)

  5. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Steven: Thank you!

  6. RJO Says:

    A casual search turns up nothing obvious by that name, so it’s probably an imaginary species, closely related to Parnassius soltani.

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