Rare Butterfly Eaten by Endangered Frog

• by @Peter_Hall

While on a two-week holiday in Arizona starting in late October, I visited the Ramsey Canyon Nature Conservancy Reserve in the Huachuca Mountains. On a hike up the canyon creek, I came across a small pond covered with a pond weed. A rare and very local Chiricahua White (Neophasia terlootii) orange female (photo 1) landed on the pond weed to drink (strange in itself).

Then a white and black male which I had taken a photo of earlier along the creek (photo 2) also landed near the female. Suddenly a large frog leaped up from under the pond weeds and swallowed the male. The pond was established to breed the very endangered Chiricahua Leopard Frog (Rana chiricahuensis) (photo 3 of frog after he ate the butterfly).