Butterflies of Sri Lanka - #03 Monkey Puzzle

One afternoon I was teaching my younger brother few basics of photography when he spotted a small butterfly with several tail filaments sitting on a crape Rathmal, ixora bush (Ixora coccinea). That butterfly is called Monkey Puzzle (Rathinda amor). My brother also wanted to try his hand on macro photography. So I gave him my Panasonic Lumix DMC-LS6. Nevertheless he managed to capture the butterfly quite successfully.

The butterfly was very cooperative. Here is my humble effort using Nikon D3200. As both of us were not using flash we had to push the ISO to 3200 to get aperture f/13 and speed of 1/200th second. Unfortunately the plant on which this butterfly was sitting was so awkward, that it allowed me only two good positions to take photos. Later I connected my Godox ThinkLite TT560. This gave me good light with which I could reduce the ISO to 100. The extra light from the flash allows you to extract a greater clarity from the picture by using lower ISO settings.

This butterfly is found in jungle areas of moderate to heavy rainfall – both, in heavy forest and scrub.  It keeps to undergrowth and can be seen along forest paths and in clearings. Its method of alighting is interesting – as soon as it lands, it turns around and waggles its tail filaments, it also sidesteps for a while – all this is apparently to confuse a predator as to which side is the head. This is a likely reason that the first naturalists may have named the species the 'Monkey Puzzle'.
                                                         
                                                                             
                                                                               Forewing

ISO -100  f/8 1/100sec

 ISO -100  f/8 1/125sec