We cross posted dirt and you gave excellent examples! I love love love
all those shots and all but the large butterfly would be, in my opinion, perfectly fine as main thumbnails because they still represent the plants.
But say 10 members over the next few years now each add their butterfly photos as part of a potential pollinator gallery, maybe adding more than one shot. people see these new photos on the home page, give them multiple thumbs-up. Now it's not so much about the plant anymore, well it still is, but it could seem more like a bug database entry.
We do have that option to overide and select a specific photo so maybe that's the the direction Dave may go.