As an American eagle, the national bird of the States, can not be easily seen in the States, it is very difficult to see, or to take a picture of Great Purple in Japan. Its larva lives on leaves of nettle trees (エノキ) but the imago lives on sap of oak trees (クヌギ). So the butterfly can be seen only in those areas where many of these two kinds of trees grow. And the butterfly comes out only in July, especially on a fine day after rainy days. What is more difficult, the butterfly flies high and rarely alights below a camera.
We were lucky to see dozens of them flying in a forest in Nagasaka Town, 100 km west of Tokyo, and luckier that a butterfly happened to alight just in front of us. This is, therefore, a very rare picture of luck.
国蝶オオムラサキの絶好の写真を偶然撮ることが出来ました。「オオムラサキの町」を標榜する山梨県北巨摩郡長坂町の長坂駅西側の大深沢川で、７月１９日に撮影しました。梅雨明けの時期の雨の後の晴れの日に、エノキとクヌギの木がある森のクヌギの近くで待つものだそうです。この日は「自然観測歩道」に沿ってクヌギ林を10km歩きましたが、数十匹の乱舞を見たのはこの場所だけで、他の場所では散見されただけでした。(1999/7/19)
もう一度行ってみました。(1999/7/24) 大深沢川には先回と同程度の多数のオオムラサキが居ましたが、暑過ぎたためか木の葉に止まっていることが多く、飛んでも先回より高い位置で飛んでいたので写真は撮れませんでした。オオムラサキセンターの林の中で初めてオオムラサキを20匹ほど見ました。
False Great Purple Butterflies
Few Americans can distinguish Japanese from Chinese. Likewise,
a beginner finds it difficult to distinguish similar butterflies.
At first I thought I took a picture of a smaller Great Purple (left), but
then I noticed differences. I asked a friend of mine, Mr.
Kurachi, what butterflies they were (left, center) and joked that they
must be "Small Purple". He told me that the left one was "Large Map
Butterfly" in English and "Sakahachi Cho" in Japanese or literally "Inverse
Eight"(meaning the Chinese character of eight), and that the middle
one was "Common Sailer" in English and "Komisuji" in Japanese or literally
"Small Three Stripes". And he gave me a picture of a butterfly named
"European Purple Emperor" in English and "Komurasaki" in Japanese or "Small
Purple" (right). Is there really such a butterfly ?
少し小型ながらやっとオオムラサキの写真を撮った（左）と思ったのですが、よく見ると羽の裏まで模様があって残念ながら別種と分かりました。素人の怖さ知らずでベテランの倉地氏に左と中は雄雌ではないか、小ムラサキとでも呼ぶのだろうかと冗談半分でお尋ねしたら、左はサカハチチョウ（成る程八の字だ）、中はコミスジ（小三筋であろう）と教えて下さり、コムラサキとはこういう蝶だと右の写真を下さった。エッ？コムラサキなんていう蝶が居るの？
