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Seriously.

Over here they have

• Tree of the Year
• Bird of the Year
• Animal of the Year
• Word of the Year (“Financial Crisis” – duh…)
• Un-word of the Year (Probably “Financial Crisis”….)
• Plant of the Year

They all tend to pop up around this time of year when we’re getting all reminiscent and a bit soft around the edges, so we say “Aaaaaah! Isn’t that nice“


Or something like that, anyway.


And then there’s “Butterfly of the Year”.

This year’s prize goes to Inachis i. io, the European Peacock butterfly.

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
(unranked):	Rhopalocera
Superfamily:	Papilionoidea
Family:	Nymphalidae
Subfamily:	Nymphalinae
Tribe:	Nymphalini
Genus:	Inachis
Species:	I. io

I spotted this chappy up in the vineyards a while back.

Sad to say that he’s now with all probability an ex-butterfly, given the prolonged cold snap we’re having, but he certainly frightened me when I saw that big eyes on his wings.

Which is what they’re there for.

Thinks:

I’ve never ever seen nominations for “Weed of the Year”.

But that’d be Cannabis sativa.

Has been for as long as I can remember, anyway…

19 Dec This entry was published on 19 December, 2008 at 06:56. It’s filed under Mainz, Nature and tagged Botanics. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.