Tag: butterfly

Bug o’the Week – Monarch Butterfly Status Update

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Monarch Butterfly Status Update

Howdy, BugFans,

This is a Good-News-Bad News-Stay-Tuned kind of story.

But first, a little background.  Besides being large and lovely, Monarch butterflies, of course, catch our fancy because of the death-defying migrations they undertake twice a year.  Migrations – fueled by flowers – that carry some of them 3,000 miles from central Mexica into Canada.

Monarchs have a wide geographical range today, but only part of it is historic.  They’ve been introduced or have found their way to and established populations in Hawaii (there’s a white subspecies in Oahu), some Caribbean Islands, Australia, New Zealand, and more, and they are accidental migrants to other spots on the globe. 

Most of the North American Monarch population is divided between the Western Monarchs that occupy the Pacific Coast west of the Rockies and overwinter in the southern half of California, and the Eastern Monarchs that range from the Rockies to the Atlantic Coast and overwinter in the oyamel fir forests in a mountainous area west of Mexico City.  There are also pockets of Monarchs that are permanent residents in Arizona, around the Gulf Coast through Florida, and along the Eastern Seaboard as far north as Virginia.

FIRST, THE GOOD(-ISH) NEWS.  Every winter the population of Eastern Monarchs that overwinters in the Mariposa Monarca Biosphere Reserve is censused by counting how many acres/hectares of the Reserve that they occupy (one hectare equals a little less than 2.5 acres or about two football fields).  The 2024 survey found Monarchs on only 2.22 acres, one of the lowest densities since the count began in 1993, but in-2025, 4.42 acres were occupied.  Good news but not great news – the population is still very low, and some researchers say that in order to be sustainable, the population should cover about 15 acres. 

Better weather, less drought, and better protections for the fir forests against illegal logging are credited with the increase (although, according to the Center for Biological Diversity, an ongoing threat to the forests is cutting trees in order to grow avocados for American tables).

Will this year’s boost become a trend?  Monarch numbers tend to see-saw.  On the negative side, a warming climate is rendering the mountainous Reserve less habitable for the firs and is making larger swatches of the South too warm for Monarch reproduction.  And then there are the pesticides that affect both the plants and the insects themselves.  On the positive side, citizens along the butterflies’ path are getting the message about planting the milkweed needed by Monarch caterpillars and a variety of nectar plants for the adults.  For more background on Monarch populations, see https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/the-monarch-butterfly-problem/.

THEN THE BAD NEWS.  Western Monarchs, historically numbered in the millions and whose numbers had exceeded 200,000 in recent counts, suffered a major crash this year, with the 2024-2025 survey finding just over 9,000 butterflies.  The “break-even” number for survival of the Western Monarch may be as high as 30,000, and some scientists put them at a 99% probability of being extinct by 2080.

A recent study shows a 22% decline in butterfly numbers across multiple species over the past twenty years.

AND THE STAY-TUNED NEWS.  A few years ago, there was some momentum to list Monarchs as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  An “Endangered” designation means that a species is in danger of going extinct over all or part of its range, and a “Threatened” species is one that is likely to become Endangered within the foreseeable future over all or a significant portion of its range.  For that story, see https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/listing-the-monarch/.  

For various reasons, among them the fact that Monarch numbers can vary dramatically from year to year, the decision was kicked down the road.  Then, in 2024, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) again proposed listing the Monarch.  The deadline for public comment, initially set to expire in March, was extended until May 19, with a possible decision to be announced by the end of 2025.  If accepted, the Monarch would be the “most common” Threatened species ever listed, which causes some observers to say that it’s still too early to bring them  under the ESA umbrella.   

Monarchs are already listed as Endangered in Canada and are recognized as a Species of Special Protection in Mexico.

Listing a Threatened or Endangered Species has far-reaching ripples, both monetary and regulatory (land use restrictions, for example), and requires a Solomon-like crafting of the law.  Any species added to the list must have a budget and a realistic game plan for recovery – one that, in the case of the Monarch, would attempt to turn back the clock on decades of habitat loss and degradation, pesticide use, and the effects of climate change.  Changing weather patterns have exposed spring migrants to stormy weather, and warmer falls have caused many Monarchs to linger in the north.  

Ideally, people should embrace the conservation goals of a recovery plan voluntarily, and any plan should allow for the continuation of state and local efforts by individuals, agencies, and organizations.  Too rigorous, and people will resent it and it will become a political hot-potato; not rigorous enough and the plan will fail the species.  In the case of the Monarch, both the butterfly and its remarkable migration are in peril. 

Fun Fact about Monarchs: they were the first butterfly species to have its genome sequenced.

Another Fun Fact about Monarchs:  the name “Monarch” is thought to be a reference to 17th century British King William III, also called the Prince of Orange (the British royalty/peerage also figured into the naming of the Baltimore Oriole and the Baltimore Checkerspot butterfly after Lord Baltimore, whose servants sported orange and black livery). 

Yet Another Fun Fact about Monarchs: according to Wikipedia, they’re the state insect of Alabama, Idaho, Illinois, Minnesota, Texas, Vermont, and West Virginia, and there were unsuccessful attempts in 1989 and 1991 to name them the National Insect of the United States.  

Final Fun Fact about Monarchs: THEY’RE COMING!   https://maps.journeynorth.org/map/?map=monarch-adult-first&year=2025.Fritillary https://bugguide.net/node/view/1990523/bgimage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/1887246/bgimage, give it a second look, just to be sure. 

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/

Bug o’the Week – Gulf Fritillary – a Snowbird Special

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Gulf Fritillary a Snowbird Special

Howdy, BugFans,

Life is busy – here’s a not-so-Golden Oldie, from the BugLady’s favorites list.

First of all, it’s a stunning butterfly https://bugguide.net/node/view/1734606/bgimage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/1926994/bgimage (the BugLady’s picture doesn’t do it justice – the original slide, taken in Texas, was fine, but the scanned slide, not so much).  Second, unlike many of BOTW’s featured bugs, there was an abundance of information about this species, some of which sent the BugLady traipsing happily down a few rabbit holes.

This is not your grandfather’s fritillary (unless your grandfather is a Southerner).  Gulf Fritillaries are in the Brush-footed butterfly family Nymphalidae, along with a whole bunch of familiar Wisconsin butterflies, and they’re with the fritillaries in the subfamily Heliconiinae (which used to be its own family).  But, unlike our familiar fritillaries https://bugguide.net/node/view/2164671/bgimage, they’re in the tribe Heliconiini, aka the Heliconians or Longwings, many of which occur in tropical climes and have long, slim, spectacular wings https://bugguide.net/node/view/1480877/bgpage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/1478862/bgpage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/309768/bgimage. 

The larvae of many Heliconians feed on parts of passion vines and leaves, and the adults eat the nectar, fruit and sap of a number of plants, and many make or save toxic chemicals for defense.  Adults often spend the night in communal roosts https://bugguide.net/node/view/6260/bgimage (a group of butterflies is called a roost or bivouac).  

The Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) (Dione vanillae in some books) is also known as the Passion butterfly because of its caterpillar host plant, and the Online Guide to the Animals of Trinidad and Tobago refers to it as the Silver Spotted Flambeau.  Carl Linnaeus gave it the species name “vanillae” based on a life cycle painting of the butterfly on a vanilla plant done by the amazing 18th century naturalist/painter Maria Sibylla Merian, but the species doesn’t use vanilla plants.  If you’re not familiar with her, here she is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Sibylla_Merian. 

Its range is described as Neotropical, which covers the ground from central Mexico and the Caribbean to southern South America.  In North America it is most common across our southern tier of states and the West Indies, and is harder to find as you travel north http://mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu/species.php?hodges=4413.  It’s one of the most common butterflies in some parts of Florida, where it has multiple generations per year; it was introduced to Southern California in the late 1800’s and is established there; it’s also established in Hawaii; and it has been recorded in Guam.  Gulf Fritillaries fly north in spring, breeding across the Southeast, and move back south again in fall, with Florida seeing dramatic migrations in both directions.   

It has a wingspan of two-and-one-half to almost four dazzling inches; females are larger than males and may have darker markings https://bugguide.net/node/view/666672/bgimage.

Courtship is exotic.  As a male and female circle each other in the air, he calms her flight response by releasing aphrodisiac courtship pheromones from “hair pencils” on his abdomen, and after she perches, he may hover above her, dusting her with more pheromones.  He perches beside her, they shift to face each other at a 45-degree angle, and he claps his wings open and closed, enveloping her antennae with each clap, delivering more pheromones from structures on the top side of his front wings and letting her know he is the same species (butterfly eyesight isn’t that great).  For Gulf Fritillaries, it’s “Ladies’ Choice” – females actively pick the males they mate with, so he really has to sell it. 

Rabbit hole #1: If she accepts his advances, his sperm packet, delivered when they mate, includes what’s called a nuptial gift.  The BugLady has written about nuptial gifts in spiders, katydids, tree crickets, and dance flies, but she had no idea that some butterflies produce them (they’re an energy-intensive investment for the male).  The sperm packet includes nutrients that will help her form eggs.  In the case of one of the European Comma butterflies (Polygonia c-album), the spermatophores are edible, containing both food and sperm, and the female, who mates with multiple males, can rate a male by the quality of plants he ate as a caterpillar (nettle is preferred) (Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore). 

She lays her eggs, one by one, on or near a passion vine (purple passionflower has the best flower ever https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passiflora#/media/File:OQ_Passion_flower.jpg), usually on the top surface of a leaf.  When they hatch, the caterpillars eat their egg shells – and sometimes neighboring eggs – and then start in on the leaves, often feeding in small groups. 

In the far southern US, Gulf fritillaries are in the air all year long, producing multiple generations.  They are said to overwinter only as adults, but one researcher concluded that after passion vines die back in Florida in early winter, caterpillars can survive in diapause (dormancy – they halt development and resume when conditions improve).  They can also enter diapause in the chrysalis stage, though temperatures under 30 degrees are not good for them (or for most Floridians).  Here’s a nice series of a caterpillar forming a chrysalis https://bugguide.net/node/view/1589936/bgimage. 

Gulf Fritillaries are well-defended.  Adults can produce stinky fluids when alarmed.  The vegetation of many passion vine species is chock full of chemicals including glycosides that release cyanide when eaten, alkaloids, and strychnine and nicotine relatives, making their caterpillars a bad choice for predators.  And if that weren’t enough, the caterpillars are spiny https://bugguide.net/node/view/2047275/bgimage. 

Rabbit hole #2 was peripheral and was kind of like when you find out that deer eat baby birds (yes, deer eat baby birds, and so do chipmunks). 

In order to produce mating pheromones and “build” nuptial gifts, male butterflies in some species in the subfamily Danainae (the Milkweed and Glasswing butterflies) may want to boost their alkaloid load.  They can get extra alkaloids by scratching toxic leaves with claws on their tarsi (feet) and sipping the resulting sap, but researchers in the Sulawesi area of Indonesia noticed that some Danaine upped the ante by ingesting chemicals from caterpillars that had been feeding on plants in the dogbane family (which is closely related to milkweed).  Seven species were observed scratching dead or dying caterpillars and sipping the fluid (researchers don’t know if the scratching part had contributed to the dead and dying part).  They went after healthy caterpillars too (“subdued them,” said the researchers), to harvest the toxic chemicals that the caterpillars sequester from their food plants for their own protection.  In their defense, it may be that the butterflies were attracted to leaves that were already scratched and oozing, and the caterpillars were just in the neighborhood.  Scientists had to coin a new term for this unique practice – “Kleptopharmacophagy” – literally “stealing chemicals for consumption.” 

One of the researchers, Yi-Kai Tea, referred to caterpillars as “essentially bags of macerated leaves; the same leaves that contain these potent chemicals the milkweed butterflies seek out.” Fortunately, our iconic Monarch has not (yet) been implicated in this behavior, which is a good thing because the BugLady wouldn’t be able to look one in the eye.

The great Roger Tory Peterson once said that a good birder always looks twice.  In his 1970 book Butterflies of Wisconsin, Ebner dismissed some early Gulf Fritillary records as “rather dubious,” and the Wisconsinbutterflies.org website lists it as a rare stray to the state.  Gulf Fritillaries are pretty distinct, but if you glance at a large fritillary and are about to write it off as another Great Spangled Fritillary https://bugguide.net/node/view/1990523/bgimage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/1887246/bgimage, give it a second look, just to be sure. 

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/

Bug o’the Week – Bugs in the News XV

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Bugs in the News XV

Howdy BugFans,

Here are four articles about bugs from the excellent Smithsonian newsletter, which also covers archaeology, birds, current science news, creatures of the deep ocean, etc.  Enjoy.

Many queen BUMBLE BEES overwinter in tunnels underground, and they develop these sites into nests in spring.  What happens in wet spring?  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/hibernating-bumblebee-queens-can-survive-underwater-for-up-to-a-week-study-finds-180984175/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&spMailingID=49668960&spUserID=ODg4Mzc3MzY0MTUyS0&spJobID=2682036985&spReportId=MjY4MjAzNjk4NQS2.

Although preliminary reports say that MONARCHS overwintering in Mexico were found over a larger area this year than last year, there’s alarming news about some of our favorite insect ambassadors  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/us-butterflies-are-disappearing-at-drastic-rates-with-one-in-five-gone-since-2000-180986188/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&lctg=91269370.   

One problem with current surveys of insect species – indeed, surveys of any living thing – is that the people who conduct today’s counts may have little acquaintance with yesterday’s populations (remember all the bugs that used to hit the windshield in days of yore?).  It’s called “Shifting Baseline Syndrome (SBS)” – what looks like a lot of butterflies may actually be only a fraction of what was counted 50 years ago.  Insects are particularly susceptible to SBS because few people were interested enough in, say, bumble bees, a century ago to count them in any systematic way https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/intrepid-team-bee-lovers-doing-everything-save-rare-native-species-extinction-180986181/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&lctg=91269370

When asked what his studies had taught him about the nature of his Creator, the great British biologist J.B.S. Haldane is said to have replied that “God has an inordinate fondness for beetles.”  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-do-so-many-beetle-species-exist-180984100/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&spMailingID=49646610&spUserID=ODg4Mzc3MzY0MTUyS0&spJobID=2681166215&spReportId=MjY4MTE2NjIxNQS2

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/

Bug o’the Week – Wildflower Watch – Cup-Plant Cosmos II

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Wildflower Watch – Cup-Plant Cosmos II

Greetings, BugFans,

The BugLady usually times the Wildflower Watch episodes so that BugFans can rush out and see the flower in bloom with its attendant bugs, but it’s the middle of January, and the BugLady is ready for spring.  At least the Technicolor part of it (with apologies to the Cardinals and Blue Jays at the bird feeder but not to the Mourning Doves and Juncos).

Cup-plant (Silphium perfoliatum) is one of four Silphium species (prairie dock, compass plant, rosinweed, and cup-plant) that are typically seen in our tallgrass prairies.  The size and shape and arrangement of leaves varies with the species, but all are tough and gritty leaves that are difficult for insects to chew on.  They are in the Aster family, related to sunflowers.  Our shortest Silphium, rosinweed, may grow four or five feet tall, but the flowering stalks of the other species may be well over six feet.

It gets its name from the way the clasping, opposite leaves are fused around the stalk at their bases, forming a cup.  They’re called perfoliate leaves, and the plant looks like its square stem is growing through a series of single leaves.

Cup-plant was used medicinally for colds, rheumatism, fevers, stomach ailments, and back pains, on burns, to prevent nausea, and more.  Young leaves were cooked (and were rated by one author as “acceptable greens”), and the resin was used as a chewing gum. 

In Where the Sky Began, John Madson writes about compass plants that, “[Pioneers] found that [the compass plant] produced a pretty good brand of native chewing gum. Drops of clear sap exude from the upper third of the stem and solidify with exposure.

It has an odd, pine-resin taste that’s pleasant enough, but it must be firmed up before it’s chewed. A couple of summers ago I tried some of this sap while it was still liquid. It’s surely the stickiest stuff in all creation, and I literally had to clean it from my teeth with lighter fluid.” 

[DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME]

Insects land on plants to eat them, to rest for a bit, or to hunt for other insects, but there’s a fourth reason they land on cup-plant, and that’s to drink.  After a rain, the cup contains water that attracts a variety of critters to drink and maybe to cool off.  But despite what was once written in a prominent Midwestern seed catalog, the water in the cups does not digest the plant and animal debris that lands in it, like a pitcher plant does.

Cup-plant is what a gardening friend of the BugLady’s used to call, “a thug.”  It can tolerate dry and rocky soils as well as rich, damp ones, and it “spreads vigorously” by both seeds and rhizomes (underground stems) – so much so that it’s considered an invasive in the Adirondacks and in some Northeastern states.  Some people keep it in check by removing the flower heads before the seeds disperse, but its flowers are much appreciated by pollinators (especially, says the Xerces Society, “by honey bees, bumble bees, and big, showy butterflies ….. and leafcutter bees may use the hollow stems as nest sites”), and its seeds are eaten by birds.  Because it is so easy to grow and grows so densely, it has been considered as a potential source of bio-fuel in recent years.

Cup-plants are a great place to find insects:

CUP-PLANT WATER collects after a rain and often lasts a few days before it dries out again. 

RED APHIDS come to cup-plants to eat (and be eaten).  These are probably in the genus Urleucon, many of whose species feed on members of the Aster/Composite family.  Multiple generations adorn the stalks and leaves of cup-plant, all wingless (unless, from an aphid’s point of view, things get really crowded and they need to disperse) and all are female (through the wonders of parthenogenesis – virgin birth) until they produce a winged generation with males at the end of the season.  Watch the video and see “collective twitching and kicking response”, a.k.a. “CTKR” (possibly the BugLady’s new favorite behavior), https://bugoftheweek.com/blog/2022/6/13/cup-plant-feeds-brown-ambrosia-aphid-uroleucon-ambrosiae-which-in-turn-provides-dinner-for-lynx-spiders-lady-beetles-long-legged-flies-flower-flies-and-green-lacewings.   

A SMALL BIRD-DROPPING MOTH appears to be sipping the water.

And so does the RED or POLISHED LADYBUG, which is one of the BugLady’s favorite ladybugs/lady beetles because of the wonderful pattern on its head and thorax     https://bugguide.net/node/view/1075335/bgimage.  It’s one of three species of “Spotless Ladybugs” in the genus Cycloneda.  Ladybugs are serious aphid predators both as adults and larvae https://bugguide.net/node/view/710099/bgimage.

The BROCHYMENA, or Rough stink bugs, of recent BOTW fame, are plant-eaters.  Their camouflage was designed for tree trunks, not green leaves.

Although this DADDY LONGLEGS looks like it came for the water, its camouflage will allow it to nab some unsuspecting, visiting insect. 

A LAND SNAIL takes advantage of some water and maybe rasps the cup-plant’s leaves looking for algae, fungi, and leaf-bits to eat.

A DIMORPHIC JUMPING SPIDER subdued something that had very long, slender legs.  Another daddy longlegs?

The CICADA is one of the Dog-day/Annual cicadas in the genus Neotibicen.  Unlike the fancy Periodical cicadas https://bugguide.net/node/view/1973693/bgimage with their dramatic outbreaks, these are our everyday cicadas.  They take several years to develop underground, but the generations overlap and so they are present every year (which is why they’re called “annual”).  They get their liquid by poking their strong “beaks” into twigs and drinking the watery sap, so the cup was just a perch for it. 

CANDY-STRIPED LEAFHOPPER – what a gem!

FORK-TAILED BUSH KATYDIDS are found in grasslands, woodlands, and thickets across most of North America from Mexico well north into Canada.  There are some odd color forms in the southern parts of their range https://bugguide.net/node/view/1017342/bgimage.  The BugLady loves their gem-like nymphs https://bugguide.net/node/view/789204/bgimage.  They don’t yell “Katy-did” – in fact, they don’t say much at all, and they don’t say it very loudly https://soundcloud.com/lisa-rainsong/fork-tailed-bush-katydid-recorded-in-terrarium?in=malte/sets/crickets.

The PRAYING MANTIS did not just come for the view.

TIGER SWALLOWTAIL – the BugLady’s favorite large, showy butterfly.

Not all of the cup-plant’s visitors are invertebrates – the BugLady often sees TREE FROGS cooling off in cup-plant water on hot summer days, and small birds drink water there.. 

This is the second in the Cup-plant Cosmos series (for the first installment, see https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/cup-plant-cosmos/).  The BugLady has also seen paper wasps, yellowjackets, a two-striped grasshopper, mirid plant bugs, a variety of flies, a land snail, and a spring peeper on its flowers and leaves. 

For Northern BugFans, those colors are Green and Yellow.  You remember them. 

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/

Bug o’the Week – The Twelve (or so) Bugs of Christmas

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

The Twelve (or so) Bugs of Christmas

Season’s Greetings, BugFans,

It’s time to celebrate a dozen (or so) of the beautiful bugs that posed for the BugLady this year (and that have already graced their own episodes).

This GREAT SPANGLED FRITILLARY on the aptly-named butterfly weed.

EUROPEAN MANTIS – the BugLady intercepted this mantis as it was attempting to cross the road and moved it to a friendlier spot.  The tiny bulls-eye in its tiny armpit tells us that it’s a European, not a Chinese mantis.  Both are non-native, invited to God’s Country by gardeners who buy them and release them as pest control (alas, to a mantis, a honey bee looks as tasty as a cabbage worm). 

When fall freezes come, they die, leaving behind ooethecae (egg cases) that look like a dried blob of aerosol shaving cream https://bugguide.net/node/view/2248160/bgimage).  Eggs in ooethecae can survive a mild winter here but not a Polar Vortex; they hatch in spring https://bugguide.net/node/view/73199/bgimage.  Every fall, The BugLady gets asked if it’s possible to keep a pet mantis alive in a terrarium over the winter.  Short answer – No – its biological clock is ticking pretty loud.

GRAY FIELD SLUG – it was an unusually hot and muggy day, a day when the cooler air above the Lake did not quite reach inland (15 yards) to the BugLady’s front door.  She glanced out and saw a gray field slug extended at least six inches on the storm door.  For more info on gray field slugs, see https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/gray-field-slug-2-25-2019/.

CANDY-STRIPED LEAFHOPPER – when a spectacular insect picks an equally spectacular perch.  What a treat!

A BROWN-MARMORATED STINK BUG shared the hawk tower with the BugLady on a cool day in late October.  They’re a huge pest in the East because they eat orchard crops in summer and hole up/stink up in your house/closets/attics/coat pockets/boots in winter, and they’re becoming more numerous here.  Remember – not every brown stink bug is a BMS – look for the pale stripes on the antennae and on the legs.

ORANGE SULPHURS are very common, and they don’t put on airs, they’re just quietly beautiful.

TACHINID FLY – when the BugLady thinks about Tachinid flies, she pictures the bristly, house-fly-on-steroids species that frequent the prairie flowers in late summer, but tachinid flies also come in “tubular.”  The larvae of this one, in the genus Cylindromyia, make a living by parasitizing some moths and grasshoppers and a few species of predatory stink bugs (for which efforts they are not appreciated, because the predatory stink bugs are busy preying on plant pests).  The adults, which are considered wasp mimics, feed on nectar. 

EBONY JEWELWINGS are frequent flyers on these pages.  The spectacular males usually have a metallic, Kelly-green body, but some individuals, in some light, appear royal blue.

SHAMROCK ORBWEAVER – the BugLady loves the big Argiope and Araneus orbweavers – tiny when they hatch in spring https://bugguide.net/node/view/1141628/bgimage, they grow slowly throughout the summer until they reach a startling size.  Most go through the winter in egg cases – some hatch early but stay inside and ride out the winter in the case, eating yolk material and their siblings, and others hatch in spring.  They emerge from the egg sac, and after a few days, balloon away in the breezes.  Page through https://bugguide.net/node/view/11644/bgimage to see all the colors Shamrock orbweavers come in (and see why, like the Marbled orbweaver, they’re sometimes called Pumpkin orbweavers).  

SKIMMING BLUET – note to self – ask insects to pose on the very photogenic leaves of Arrow Arum. 

RED-VELVET MITE – the BugLady is frequently struck by the fact that the weather data we rely on was measured by instruments inside a louvered box that sits five feet above the ground, but the vast majority of animals – vertebrate and invertebrate alike – never get five feet off the ground in their lives.  The weather they experience depends on microclimates created by the vegetation and topography in the small area where they live.  Red velvet mites search for tiny animals and insect eggs to eat; their young form temporary tick-ish attachments to other invertebrates as they go through a dizzying array of life stages (OK – prelarva, larva, protonymph, deutonymph, tritonymph, adult).  Read more about them here https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/red-velvet-mite-again/.

BUSH KATYDID – what child is this?  A nymph of a bush katydid (Scudderia). 

ANTS WITH APHIDS – while shepherds watched their flocks at night……  Some kinds of ants “farm” aphids and tree hoppers, guarding them from predators, guiding them to succulent spots to feed, and “milking” them – harvesting the sweet honeydew that the aphids exude from their stern while overindulging in plant sap.

And an EASTERN PONDHAWK in a pear tree.

Whatever Holidays you celebrate, may they be merry and bright and filled with laughter.

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/

Bug o’the Week – Dogwood Scurfy Scale

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Dogwood Scurfy Scale

Howdy, BugFans,

If asked to describe a Red-osier dogwood shrub, lots of people would say “it has red bark with white lumps on it.”  It does – but it doesn’t.

Some of our most un-bug-like bugs are the scale insects.  There are lots of them worldwide – about 8,400 species in 36 families.  They’re called scales because they (the females, anyway) cling, limpet-like, to their food plant, protected under a waxy covering that looks fish-scale-ish.  They’re sexually dimorphic (“two forms”), and adult males – in the species where males exist – are often tiny and gnat-like.  If your basic definition of an insect is “six legs, some wings, and three body parts that are divided in segments” you’ll have to suspend it a bit for the scales.

Their nearest relatives are aphids, whiteflies, jumping plant lice, and phylloxera bugs.

They hatch from eggs that the female lays under her body (or they are viviparous – popped out “live”), sometimes fertilized with the help of a male and sometimes produced by parthenogenesis (“virgin birth”), and a very few species are hermaphroditic (they have dual equipment and can self-fertilize, and so a single individual can create a whole population).  Six-legged when they hatch, scales enjoy two short, mobile instars (they’re called “crawlers”), during which they disperse, but their legs are short, so they don’t go far without help (crawlers may also be blown around by the wind).  Then the tiny females settle down, attach to a host, and lose their legs, generally staying put for the rest of their lives.  The short-lived males must find females where they sit, and although he may be winged, his wings are not good for much, so he comes on foot.  There are generally several generations per year.

Scales are vegetarians, feeding on plant sap that they suck from leaves or branches.  Some are found only on specific hosts and others are more generalist feeders, and although a very few species feed on mosses, lichens, and algae, as a group, they’re fond of the woody plants.  Their predators include some ladybugs and lacewings, and a few parasitoid wasps whose larvae consume the insect (they target younger scales) or the eggs under the scale.  There are scale insects that are serious plant pests, scale insects that are used to control invasive plants, and scale insects that are “cultivated” because they’re used to produce shellacs, waxes, and red dyes. 

The two, big divisions of scale insects are “cushiony” and “armored” scales.  Cushiony scales tend to be lumpier than armored scales, and they’re permanently attached to their waxy covering.  The excess sap that they consume, released as a sweet fluid called “honeydew,” attracts other insects to feed on it, and some species of scale are cared for by ants that protect the scales from predators, harvest the honeydew, and help the crawlers find fresh twigs.  The downside of honeydew is that sooty mold grows on leaves where its sticky sweetness falls, which interferes with photosynthesis and isn’t very wholesome looking.  A species of cottony scale was featured in a BOTW years ago https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/cottony-scale-family-coccidae/

Dogwood scurfy scales are armored scales, and armored scales are in the family Diaspididae, the largest scale family (2650 species).  Armored scales feed on hosts from 180 plant families.  They’re not attached to their waxy cover, are smaller and flatter than cottony scales, and they don’t produce honeydew.  Their tough – armored- coverings may be round, elliptical, or oyster shell-shaped and may have concentric rings/ridges.  The female incorporates the shed skins from her crawler stage into her growing shell, and the wax is made and shaped by a structure called the pygidium at the rear of the abdomen.  The critter below the scale has knob-like antennae, no legs, and little distinction between head and thorax.  

Not surprisingly, with so many species of armored scales, there are many different lifestyles.  In general, she lays her eggs or live young under her scale, which has a slit at the rear that allows them to exit.  Her eggs overwinter under the shelter of her scale, though she’s no longer alive when they hatch.

The BugLady saw a paper that said that some armored scales may get around by phoresy – hitchhiking – sticking to their six-legged taxi cabs (the study identified a fly, a ladybug, and an ant) with the help of a few “suction-cup”-tipped hairs on each of their legs

FUN FACT ABOUT ANT PARTNERSHIPS

An odd relationship has evolved between a species of African ant and a species of armored scale (which, remember, have no honeydew to trade for ant favors).  The ants shelter the scales in the galleries/tunnels they live in under tree bark – the ants are so specialized that they spend their whole lives there.  The scales no longer need protection from the elements or from predators, so most of them are “naked,” though some still make wax and other scale-building materials that the ants eat along with the crawlers’ shed skins and various scale “excretions.”  The whole thing hinges on the ant queen finding a suitable host tree and rounding up crawler-aged scales during her brief nuptial flight.

As the poet Muriel Rukeyser once said, “The world is made of stories, not atoms.”

SCURFY DOGWOOD SCALE/RED-OSIER SCALE INSECT

The BugLady started nibbling around the edges of this episode at least three years ago and hit a brick wall pretty fast.  The Extension and Horticultural sites mostly said – “Yup, dogwoods get scales” but offered no names or biographies, so, the original iteration of this BOTW was something like, “These are dogwood scurfy scales – they’re everywhere, but no one’s written anything about them – thanks as always to PJ at the Insect Diagnostic Lab in Madison for pointing the BugLady toward an ID.” 

But the BugLady could never do that, so…..

In her initial search for a name, the BugLady came across the pine leaf scale (Chionaspis pinifoliae https://bugguide.net/node/view/361628/bgimage) that looked similar, but she thought it was unlikely to be her scale because, well, pine needles.  The dogwood scale suggested by PJ is Chionaspis corni; in the same genus, but when you Google Chionaspis corni, most hits are for Chionaspis pinifoliae.  Bugguide.net lists no other genus members and although the dogwood scurfy scale is common here, does not even show the genus as occurring in Wisconsin (buggide’s caveat about its range maps is “The information below is based on images submitted and identified by contributors. Range and date information may be incomplete, overinclusive, or just plain wrong”).

Just to make things interesting, the accepted spelling of the genus name (since 1868) is Chionaspis, but over the years it has officially been misspelled by later taxonomists as Chianaspis, Chiomaspis, and Chionapsis.

The BugLady checked the wonderful Illinois Wildflowers website https://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/ and found the dogwood scale (along with several other species of scale including the willow scale and the Gloomy scale) mentioned in the Faunal Associations sections of the write-ups of red-osier and flowering dogwoods and several other dogwood shrubs. 

And one more thing – “scurfy” means rough or scaly or covered with scurf, and a “scurf” is a flake, scale or dandruff.

Whew!

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/

Bug o’the Week – Common Buckeye Butterfly rewrite

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Common Buckeye Butterfly rewrite

Howdy, BugFans,

The BugLady originally wrote about the Common Buckeye in January of 2009, but she thinks she might have given it short shrift (due to insufficient scholarship), so here’s a rewritten version with new words and new pictures.

The first thing to know about Common Buckeyes is that they are not Yankee butterflies – they are Southerners (from a largely tropical genus) that recolonize God’s Country in varying numbers from year to year and produce a two or three broods here, depending on whether spring and/or fall is long and mild.  But they are not very “freeze-tolerant,” and they can’t survive Wisconsin winters in any stage, so they wander back south in the fall.  Brock and Kaufman, in their Field Guide to Butterflies of North America, report that fall migrations of Common Buckeyes, especially on the Atlantic coast, can be spectacular.  The BugLady saw some out on the prairie as recently as a week ago – they always see her and her camera before she sees them (with their wings closed, they’re pretty well camouflaged), and they fly farther down the trail to wait for her.

The Common Buckeye (Junonia coenia, aka Precis coenia) (not the Ohio buckeye – that’s a tree) belongs to the Order Lepidoptera (“scaled wings”) which includes the butterflies and the moths.  Of the 12,000 species of Lepidoptera in North America north of Mexico, only about 700 are butterflies.  Along with the usual six-legs-three-body-parts insect stuff, moths and butterflies have in common four wings that are covered with easily-rubbed-off scales (the upper surface of a butterfly’s wing often has a different pattern then the lower surface does), and mouthparts in the form of a coiled tube called a proboscis that is used for feeding on liquids like nectar and sap.  Caterpillars chew; butterflies and moths sip. 

Rules of thumb for telling them apart are that (generally) butterflies sit with their wings held out to the side or folded vertically above their bodies, and moths hold their wings flat over or wrapped around their body.  Butterflies have a thickened tip/knob on the end of their antennae; moths’ antennae may be bare or feathery but are never knobbed.  Butterflies are active by day (though the BugLady had night-feeding Northern Pearly-eye butterflies who hadn’t read that part of the playbook), and moths are generally active in late afternoon and through the night.  Some moths have bright colors and patterns, but as a group, they tend to be drab – what birders call “LBJ’s” – “Little Brown Jobs.”  Because of their pigmented and/or prismatic scales, many butterflies are the definition of the word “dazzling.” 

Buckeyes belong to the “Brush-footed butterfly” family Nymphalidae, a large group of strong, colorful fliers whose front legs are noticeably hairy and are reduced in size (leading to another nickname – “four-footed butterflies”).  There are a number of brush-foots that migrate and others that, contrary to the usual insect practice, overwinter as adults.  Many Nymphalid caterpillars are nocturnal and spiny.  

The “Butterflies of Massachusetts” website says of this beautiful butterfly that “The Halloween-costumed Buckeye wears the colors of fall in New England.”  Buckeyes are named for the eyespots on their wings, which are reminiscent of the spots on buckeye nuts.  Many members of the genus Junonia have eyespots to scare away predators, and an eyespot can even be seen in the Buckeye’s pupal wing case. 

Both the caterpillar and the adult are variable in color – an adult whose underwing surface is tan is from an early summer generation, and one whose underwing is rosy is from the final brood of the year – the color change is controlled by genes and is a response to the temperatures that the caterpillar is exposed to.  There is no other butterfly species in Wisconsin that can be mistaken for them. 

Buckeyes are sun-lovers, butterflies of sunny habitats like open fields, disturbed areas, trails, edges, and grassy dunes, where they often perch on the ground.  “Butterflies of Massachusetts” speculates that this species has become more common since the European settlers cleared the great forests for agriculture, and notes that it is one of our native butterflies that has adopted a non-native “weed” (English plantain) as a food plant.  Adults sip nectar from dogbanes and from those confusing fall composites (asters and goldenrods), and they sip fluids from decaying fruit. 

Males are feisty and territorial, chasing other flying objects, both butterfly and non-butterfly alike.  He scouts for females from a perch on the ground or on low vegetation.  After mating, females oviposit on leaves and leaf buds of host plants – mostly members of the plantain (the lawn plant, not the banana relative) and snapdragon families.  Caterpillars https://bugguide.net/node/view/1939097/bgimage are solitary and non-aggressive, even when they bump into another caterpillar on the same plant.  The pupae https://bugguide.net/node/view/2214613/bgimage are said to look like bird poop (pretty fancy bird poop, indeed!). 

Caterpillar food plants often contain toxic chemicals (iridoid glycosides) that besides being very bitter, will literally stunt the growth of a predator that eats a caterpillar – chemicals that, conversely, make the caterpillars hungry.  Chemicals that, when the female senses them, will stimulate her to oviposit.  Predators seem to sense the presence of the glycosides and prefer caterpillars with low/no levels of them.  Caterpillars must be careful of getting too much of a good thing – excessive amounts of iridoid glycosides can affect their immune system negatively.

Ain’t Nature Grand!

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/

Bug o’the Week – Wooly Bear Caterpillar again

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Wooly Bear Caterpillar again

Greetings, BugFans,

The BugLady has been doing a little dance as she walks down the trail lately, trying to avoid stepping on wooly bear caterpillars (her mission statement, after all, is “Less stepping on bugs”).  She has been less successful when she drives.  So, it’s time to rerun this episode that originally aired in 2009, but that she re-posts every five years or so.  A few new words; some new pictures:

Wooly bear caterpillars are tiger moths in the family Erebidae and in the subfamily Arctiinae.  It’s a diverse family that includes almost a thousand species of tiger, underwing, Zale, tussock moths, and more, in North America, and many more worldwide (except Antarctica).  If you have an older insect guide, tiger moths are in the family Arctiidae, but everything that was once in Arctiidae has been folded into Arctiinae.  Tiger moths are unusual in that they have an organ on their thorax that vibrates to produce ultrasonic sound.  They “vocalize” to attract mates and to defend against predators.  If you have sound-making ability, you also need “ears,” and those are on the thorax, too.  Like tigers, the adults of many species are hairy and sport bold color patches, stripes or patterns. 

Many tiger moth caterpillars are fuzzy, earning a group name of wooly bears or wooly worms (two “lls” or one “l” – take your pick.  Two lls is more common in Britain and one l is more common here).  The wooly bear du jour is the ultra-familiar rust-and-black-banded caterpillar whose grown-up name is Isabella Tiger Moth (Pyrrharctia isabella) https://bugguide.net/node/view/1937881/bgimage.  The caterpillar goes by the generic Wooly Bear, and also Black-ended Bear, and the Banded Wooly Bear.  Pyrrharctia is a “monotypic genus” – there’s only this single species in it, and they’re only found in North America. There is an amazing amount of information out there about wooly bear caterpillars, and much of it is contradictory, a problem that is exacerbated by the fact that there are many different kinds of caterpillars that are called wooly bears. 

A mature female Isabella Tiger Moth “calls” to males by emitting pheromones (chemical signals) at night, and the males zero in on her by using their sensory antennae.  Isabella Tiger Moths lay their eggs on a wide variety of plants during the warm months.  While some caterpillars are known for their picky eating, wooly bears are generalists.  They feed during the day, munching on handy, low-growing plants like grasses, “weeds” and wildflowers (cannibalism has also been reported).  Their catholic eating habits ensure that they’re constantly surrounded by food during their autumnal wandering in search of wintering sites.  

Wooly bears spend the winter as caterpillars, out of the weather under tree bark or debris, or in your garage.  Do they become “bug-cicles”?  Yes, indeed – they’ve even been found frozen in a chunk of ice.  But, like other organisms that are dormant in the dead of winter, wooly bears produce a chemical called a cryoprotectant (antifreeze) that protects living tissue against damage from freezing and thawing.  Wooly bears will stir and walk around on mild winter days and then go back into hiding when the temperatures drop again.  They wake up with the warm weather, resume eating, and pupate in late spring in a fuzzy cocoon into which they incorporate their own “setae” (hairs) https://bugguide.net/node/view/2249302/bgimage.  According to Wikipedia, Arctic summers are so short that wooly bears may need to live through several of them to become mature enough to pupate.   

One area of disagreement among references is whether the wooly bears’ wool/setae/hairs/bristles are irritants.  Having a bristly covering discourages some predators, although in the Fieldbook of Natural History, E. L. Palmer says that “skunks and a few other animals roll hairs off the caterpillars before they eat them.”  Certainly, the stiff hairs make it a harder to pick a wooly bear up, and when you do pick one up and it inevitably curls into a defensive ball, it’s pretty slippery.  Some sources say that the wooly bears’ setae contain a stinging/irritating/venomous chemical, and other sources specifically say they do not.  Still other references say the setae may cause dermatitis mechanically – that they might break off in your skin (like one of those wretched, furry cacti); and others say that that unlike many hairy caterpillars, wooly bears are harmless.  The BugLady has never suffered any ill effects from handling the familiar, rust-and-black wooly bears.

Wooly bears have been famous since Colonial times for two things: 1) their habit of crossing the roads in fall (the BugLady wonders what they crossed before the Colonists arrived and started making roads); and 2) their alleged ability to predict the weather. 

The weather lore angle was initiated by those same, road-building Colonists, who needed some forecasting done in those pre-Weather Channel days so they could figure out when to plant and harvest crops.  If its rust-colored middle band is wide, says the Almanac, the winter will be a mild one; if there’s lots of black, batten down the hatches (except for a few sources that say the opposite – that lots of rust means lots of cold).

A surprising number of scientists have felt obligated to leap in and deflate the weather story.  To them the BugLady says “Lighten up, Party Poopers, and let a little fantasy into your lives.”  They tell us that the widening middle band is a result of age, and that each time wooly bears molt, a black band becomes a rust band (except for a few who say the opposite – that rust turns to black).  So, a rustier wooly bear is an older wooly bear.  The BugLady has been curious about why the early fall wooly bears seemed more pessimistic than the later fall wooly bears and is happy to have that one resolved.  In spring, a blacker wooly bear is one that became dormant prematurely, and may indeed be telling the weather – of the previous fall.  Other research suggests that a wooly bear with lots of rust lived in dry conditions, and one source says that a wooly bear with wide black bands grew up where the habitat was wetter.  Still other scientists say that there is considerable variation in color within newly-hatched individuals from a single clutch of eggs, and that the variation persists as they age.

We have Dr. Curran, a curator of insects at the American Museum of Natural History, to thank for popularizing the wooly bear.  Charmed by the old weather saying, Dr. Curran drove north from New York City along the Hudson to Bear Mountain State Park each year for eight years in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s to measure the coloration of the wooly bears he found there.  During those years, the rusty bands predicted mild winters.  He leaked the forecasts via a friend at a NYC newspaper, and the publicity his reports generated put wooly bears on the map.  But Dr. Curran’s only real hypothesis was that Scientists Just Want to Have Fun.  He and his friends enjoyed the scenery, the foliage and the wooly bears on their annual fall forays and formed “The Original Society of the Friends of the Woolly Bear.”  Thirty years after Dr. Curran’s outings ceased, the folks at Bear Mountain State Park resurrected the Friends organization and the wooly bear count.

Wooly bears are embraced by children and adults alike, and Annual Wooly Bear Festivals are celebrated:

Clearly, Wisconsin is missing the boat, here (though Milwaukee had a third annual Wooly Bear Fest in January of 2015). 

Go outside – chart wooly bears. 

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/

Bug o’the Week – Bugs in the News XIV

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Bugs in the News XIV

Greetings, BugFans,

Time to chip away at the BugLady’s giant collection of insect articles.  Note that most of them are from various (free) on-line reports put out by the Smithsonian.

 

SPIDERS – We have semi-aquatic spiders around here, too.  Most, like the Six-spotted fishing spider are in the nursery web spider family – https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/these-funky-spiders-live-near-or-in-water-180984283/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&spMailingID=49766545&spUserID=ODg4Mzc3MzY0MTUyS0&spJobID=2701966506&spReportId=MjcwMTk2NjUwNgS2.  

TOOL-USING SPIDERS – Scientists get all excited when a new tool-using behavior is discovered in a mammal or bird.  Invertebrates use tools, too, like wasps that use small sticks to help excavate nest tunnels in soil, tree crickets that take advantage of curved leaves to amplify their calls, ants that soak up liquids with bits of absorbent materials to make it easier to carry the liquids back to their nests, and some beetle larvae that build a fecal shield for protection.  There’s been a good deal of discussion among scientists about what constitutes a “tool,” and some (but not all) of those definitions have included the use of other organisms.  Here’s a spider that uses a firefly: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/these-spiders-use-captured-fireflies-as-flashing-lures-to-snare-more-prey-180984940/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&spMailingID=50099331&spUserID=ODg4Mzc3MzY0MTUyS0&spJobID=2762283843&spReportId=Mjc2MjI4Mzg0MwS2.     

ALIEN HORNETS – Not much in the news this year about the Asian murder/Northern giant hornet – the folks in the Pacific Northwest are cautiously optimistic that they’ve found all the nests.  Just when you thought it was safe to get back into the water (metaphorically speaking), along comes the Yellow-legged hornet, on the opposite coast: https://extension.psu.edu/yellow-legged-hornet

ENTOMOPHAGY (the art and science of eating insects) is gaining in popularity here, but it’s traditionally been a feature of other cuisines.  Singapore approved 16 insect species for food — https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/singapore-approves-16-insect-species-as-food-180984685/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&spMailingID=49962829&spUserID=ODg4Mzc3MzY0MTUyS0&spJobID=2741185369&spReportId=Mjc0MTE4NTM2OQS2

BUZZING BUTTERFLIES – bumble bees are famous for “buzz pollination” – causing flowers to release their protein-rich pollen by grabbing the flower parts that produce pollen (anthers) with their mandibles, disengaging their flight muscles, and vibrating their thoracic muscles mightily.  The result is not flight, but movement/shaking of the pollen-holding structures that causes pollen to rain down onto the bee.  They are aided in this by the electric charges that build up on their bodies as they fly and that attract pollen.  Can butterflies do this?  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/static-electricity-may-help-butterflies-and-moths-pick-up-pollen-180984823/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&spMailingID=50039609&spUserID=ODg4Mzc3MzY0MTUyS0&spJobID=2760223063&spReportId=Mjc2MDIyMzA2MwS2

ANTS – Some ants produce their own pharmaceuticals:  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/honey-made-by-ants-could-protect-against-bacteria-and-fungi-180982611/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&spMailingID=48539902&spUserID=ODg4Mzc3MzY0MTUyS0&spJobID=2503571888&spReportId=MjUwMzU3MTg4OAS2

CLIMATE CHANGE – WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? – https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/rash-causing-moths-are-spreading-because-of-climate-change-180979650/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20220228-daily-responsive&spMailingID=46470006&spUserID=ODg4Mzc3MzY0MTUyS0&spJobID=2200009908&spReportId=MjIwMDAwOTkwOAS2.

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL – As seasoned BugFans know, the BugLady is a big fan of macro/extreme macro/scanning electron microscope (SEM) photography.  Enjoy:  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/these-stunning-portraits-of-insects-reveal-the-intricacies-of-an-amazing-world-180984926/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&spMailingID=50122698&spUserID=ODg4Mzc3MzY0MTUyS0&spJobID=2763062134&spReportId=Mjc2MzA2MjEzNAS2

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/

Bug o’the Week – Little Yellow Butterfly

Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Little Yellow Butterfly

Howdy, BugFans,

When the BugLady was on the trail recently, a small, yellow butterfly flew by, just above the ground.  It was noticeably smaller than the ubiquitous Orange and Clouded Sulphurs, but it zipped out of sight pretty fast.  Mike Reese, host of the excellent Wisconsin Butterflies website (https://wisconsinbutterflies.org/) describes similar experiences “It has not been the easiest butterfly for me to observe. I have seen this butterfly in central Wisconsin several years and have attempted to photograph it. All the individuals I saw took off on a beeline for other areas, dancing calmly but surely away from me, never to be seen again.”  Fortunately, the BugLady’s butterfly turned around, came back, and posed nicely.

It was a Little Yellow/Little Sulphur/Lisa Yellow (Pyristia lisa) (formerly Eurema lisa).  Like the larger Sulphurs and the “Whites,” it’s in the family Pieridae.  Its wingspread measures 1 ¼” to 1 ¾” (females are slightly larger than males, but otherwise males and females are very similar), and there are pale and dark forms, depending on the time of summer https://bugguide.net/node/view/1752987/bgimage, https://bugguide.net/node/view/898574/bgimage.  The BugLady’s butterfly snapped its wings shut immediately; here’s one with wings open https://bugguide.net/node/view/1184957/bgimage

Little Yellows are southern butterflies, abundant in grasslands, open areas and along woodland and road edges and railroad tracks as far south as Central America and Costa Rica, but they migrate north in summer and are found from the Great Plains as far west as New Mexico and South Dakota, to the Atlantic Coast as far north as Canada.  Their numbers in Wisconsin vary from year to year, and they may persist into October here, but the final generation of the summer turns around and heads back south again. 

Males keep an eye out for females, and when they see one, they court by touching her with their legs and wings.  The female responds by spreading her antennae so she can sense his pheromones.  If she’s not interested, she flutters her wings or departs; if she is – https://bugguide.net/node/view/2299141/bgimage.

She lays her eggs on the midveins of the leaves of a host plant, and when the eggs hatch, the larvae feed on the tender leaf tissue between the veins, resting along the midrib (nice series of pictures https://bugguide.net/node/view/1036429).  Adults live a brief 10 days.   

Little Yellows may produce five generations in their southern breeding range, and those that reach Wisconsin and beyond will breed if they can find host plants, but they are too sensitive to the cold to survive winters above 40 degrees north latitude (Philadelphia, PA to Columbus, OH to Boulder, CO).

Most sources only list a few caterpillar host plants in the Pea/Legume family, specifically Partridge Pea, Wild Senna, and Mimosa strigulosa, a small mimosa shrub.  Ebner, in his Butterflies of Wisconsin (1970), writes that clovers in the genus Trifolium are undoubtedly used as host plants by the Wisconsin populations.  The butterflies nectar on aster and goldenrod, and crowds of males gather at the edge of puddles to sip minerals from the damp earth https://bugguide.net/node/view/432629/bgimage.  Little Yellows are preyed on by crab spiders and ambush bugs and in the south, native praying mantises.

Little Yellows are small but mighty – they’re famous for mass migrations that take them far from home.  In 1874, Samuel Scudder described a swarm that reached the Bermuda Islands, “Early in the morning, several persons living on the north side of the island perceived, as they thought, a cloud coming over from the northwest, which drew nearer and nearer to shore, on reaching which it divided into two parts, one of which went eastward and the other westward, gradually falling upon the land.  They were not long in ascertaining that what they had taken for a cloud was an immense concourse of small yellow butterflies, which flitted about all the open, grassy surfaces in a lazy manner, as if fatigued after their long voyage over the deep.  Fishermen out near the reefs, some miles to the north of the islands very early that morning, stated that numbers of these insects fell upon their boats, literally covering them.” 

Magic.

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/

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