Clouded Sulphur

The clouded sulphur butterfly is a yellow, medium-sized butterfly with a wing span of about two inches.  Its other names are the common sulphur, and the clouded yellow.  Here's the one I photographed, with his wings folded.

Notice his little antennae, which look like little match sticks.

These butterflies are much more beautiful than this photo can show.  When opened, the wings are rimmed with a smokey black smudge, and have two light-orange spots gracing their yellow wings.

Sulphurs are pollinators, and do good work by flying from flower to flower, drinking the nectar.  In this way they pick up and drop off their cargo of pollen. Some of their favorite plants are clover, milkweed, alfalfa, coneflowers and sunflowers.

These butterflies fly close to the ground and are very fast.  This accounts for why I wasn't able to get any additional photos of this fellow!

Their scientific name is Colias philodice.   The etymology of colias still eludes me, but philodice comes from - you guessed it - Greek mythology.  Philodice was the daugther of the river god, Inachus, and a sister to Io.