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Interactive Atlas and Photographic Guide to Butterflies of Victoria

for Microsoft Windows Vista, XP, 2000. ME, 98

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Identification Aids

Using Wing Colour
Butterflies are often colourful animals and the colour in their wings is commonly the first thing that a person would notice.  Victorian Butterflies helps you to use colours in three ways.  The first is simply to use the most noticeable colour - for example blue - as a character for narrowing down the possibilities.

The second is to use a combination of the most abundant colours on the upper wings (e.g. black and orange).

The third is to use the colour or colour pattern of the lower wings (e.g. red, black and white or camouflage colouring.

Using Butterfly Wingspan
Size is also something that people use for identification and the package allows you to group butterflies into small, medium or large.  Or to group them into more refined groups based on the wingspan (i.e. in classes of 10-15 mm). 

Using other features
Butterflies come in many shapes but for identification purposes one of the most useful characters is the presence or absence of a tail on the hindwing.