Brown Pansy

Nymphalidae; Nymphalinae; Nymphaliini; Junonia hedonia ida Cramer, 1775. When I spotted this Brown Pansy, it was flying from plant to plant, in our vegetable plot, alighting, momentarily on one plant, then moving on to the next. I noticed that its left hindwing was not functioning properly, but it appeared to be flying very well. So, I followed it around until it settled for a slight longer time on a leaf and took two photos before it flew away again. When I looked at my pictures, in preparation for this spotting, I saw the problem with the defective wing. In the rest position, the wings are closed, with the apex of each wing pointing upwards and the upper half of the left hindwing is "curled" so that the apex is pointing downwards. There is also slight damage to the leading edge of that wing, but that is not part of the main problem. What has happened to this butterfly is that, when it emerged from its chrysalis, it did not find a good position to let its wings hang straight down, while they were inflated with haemolymph (arthropod blood). So the left hindwing must have been unable to straighten out and became permanently deformed. This is a fairly common occurence, but this butterfly appeared to be coping very well with the condition.