Butterflies

Wild flowers attract wild butterflies.  The Pryors are a good place to look for both.

We recommend a good pair of binoculars for butterfly watching.  They will give you a “big screen” view from a distance less likely to scare a butterfly away.  Look for close-focus binoculars which will focus on objects as close as half a dozen feet away.  Many good bird watching binoculars work well.

A number of butterfly field guides are available such as:

Butterflies of North America by Jim P. Brock & Kenn Kaufman, published by Houghton Mifflin.

A good internet source of information is Butterflies and Moths of North America which is maintained by the Big Sky Institute at Montana State University.  This website includes photos, descriptions, and range maps for many species including a species list for Carbon county MT which includes the Pryors.

These photos were all taken in the Pryors.   Contributions of photos, information, or corrections from professional or amateur lepidopterists are welcome.

Click on thumbnails to enlarge.