An amazing walk down a driveway

Members of the Southern Wisconsin Butterfly Association report their butterfly sightings to a website that is open to the public for viewing.  A set of companion pages provide information on the characteristics of butterflies of the region.

The above report from this past week [2018] caught my eye because of the abundance and the diversity of butterflies observed in just a couple hours in the space of only a half-mile walk down a driveway in southwestern Wisconsin.

Seeing butterflies on a driveway (on the sand/gravel - not on the adjacent vegetation) is not an unexpected experience in itself.  The phenomenon is called "puddling" because after a summer rainshower butterflies gather at barren locations in search of minerals (especially sodium) and other trace nutrients that are not obtainable from the nectar sources in flowers.  I photographed this cluster a couple summers ago at Crex Meadows -

- and I had difficulty driving down the roads there without running into butterflies.

What amazed me about the list at the top of this post was not the number of butterflies, but the diversity of species present.  With the exception of the large fritillaries and the Red Admiral and a couple others, these are not long-distance migratory butterflies.  Most of them have a rather limited range for their lifetime, and since their needs are specific with regard to food plants for their larva, the implication is that there must be a wide range of microhabitats present close to this driveway (woods, fields, meadows, wetlands, prairie).

Marcie O'Connor maintains Prairie Haven, a repurposed 500-acre farm that she has been "unfarming" for years.  Unfarming does not mean neglecting - it refers to an active and labor-intensive process of letting the land revert back to its natural set of habitats, which requires attention to invasives and selective controlled mowing and seeding.  She describes the process at this link; elsewhere on the website she provides inventories of the incredible variety of butterflies, moths (82 species in one night), and other animals (and plants) they have observed at Prairie Haven.  The website is well worth a visit for those interested in conservation of natural resources and habitats.

Addendum 2025:

This is the butterfly count at Prairie Haven for one day in the midsummer of 2025.  Note that this is an official NABA count, so there are multiple observers likely stationed at or walking through different areas on the farm, but the variety of species is truly remarkable.

Monarch dieoff caused by pesticides

The major risk to Monarchs is from habitat/food plant loss, but a recent article at the Xerces Society website emphasizes the dangers of pesticides.

On January 25, 2024, volunteers stumbled upon a devastating scene: scores of dead and dying monarch butterflies scattered across the lawn of a private property adjacent to the Pacific Grove Monarch Sanctuary overwintering grove in California. While volunteers periodically encounter both live and the occasional dead monarch on the ground near the grove, several details about this incident struck them as unusual. 

Most notably, the dying butterflies were spasming, a symptom commonly observed in response to pesticide poisoning. The number of butterflies involved was also alarming, as approximately 200 out of the nearly 2,000 monarch butterflies overwintering in the sanctuary at the time were affected. While some of the monarchs were scattered across the lawn, the majority were grouped in several piles parallel to the edge of a nearby building. These grouped butterflies showed no signs of predation or rodent caching, suggesting that something else was responsible for their unusual positioning...

The analysis by USGS revealed that the monarchs had been exposed to a variety of pesticides including multiple insecticides, fungicides, and herbicides. On average, each butterfly contained residues of 7 different pesticides in their bodies. Three extremely toxic pyrethroid insecticides were each found at or near lethal levels in the tested butterflies...

Given the timing, location, and profile of pesticides detected, it is likely that the monarch’s deaths were caused by an unreported or untraceable pesticide application by a local resident or business.

The article concludes with some recommendations, including these:

Do not apply pesticides to open flowers or when monarchs and other pollinators are active.   

Keep in mind that organic pesticides are not necessarily safe for monarchs and other pollinators. For example, the organic pesticide, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), is highly toxic to monarchs and other butterflies. 

Remember that pesticides applied to impervious surfaces (such as driveways, walkways, patios, and building exteriors) can wash into vegetated areas and contaminate plants and soil.  

Be aware that pesticides used to control “household” pests such as termites, ants, cockroaches, and spiders can also be deadly to pollinators and other beneficial insects.

Last summer crews of workers went through our neighborhood, offering to spray homes and yards for "pests." I watched as they used long-handled sprayers to treat walls ten feet off the ground, to kill ???what. 

"Cousin-german"

I don't know where or when I encountered this word; it's been on my "words" list for years waiting to be looked up.  I was a bit surprised by what I found in the OED:

1a. The son or daughter of (one's) uncle or aunt; (one's) first cousin. (1826 R. Southey Lett. to C. Butler 232 The marriage of cousin-germans‥was allowed in the first ages of the church.)

2. A person or thing closely related or allied to another; a near relative. 1822 W. Irving Bracebridge Hall (U.K. ed.) II. 85, I had been apt to confound them [sc. rooks] with their cousins-german, the crows.)

One's brother and sister can similarly be called your "brother-german" and "sister-german," with some implications for the genetics.  Nowadays the term means the person is your brother/sister via both your parents, as opposed to a "brother on the father's side" or a "brother-uterine" (brother via your mother with a different father).

And the "german" part?  Here's the head-slap moment - it's a variant of "germain" [O.F. < Latin], which of course means "closely-related" or "relevant."

I was going to publish this without a picture, but when I ran the term through Google Images, I kept seeing moths.  Turns out there are several species of moths called the "Cousin German."  The embedded one I found here; the UK Moths site says "A rare and local species, restricted to birch woodland in the Highlands of central Scotland.  They are also illustrated in BugGuide.  Why they should have been given that common name, I have no idea.

Reposted from 2011 to add this useful graphic:

Via the mildlyinteresting subreddit.

An update on the status of Monarchs

I'm impressed by the projects being undertaken in Mexico by scientists and indigenous people to extend the vertical range of Monarch overwintering habitat in an effort of counteract the deleterious effects of climate change.

Monarchs at the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, Michoacan, Mexico

An awesome sight, but the first reports I've seen from Monarch Watch is that the numbers are way down again this year, especially in the sanctuaries in California.

Photo by Jaime Rojo, who was the European Wildlife Photographer of the Year for 2024, via a gallery in The Atlantic.

"Flying Crooked"

"The butterfly, the cabbage white,

(His honest idiocy of flight)

Will never now, it is too late,

Master the art of flying straight,

Yet has — who knows so well as I? —

A just sense of how not to fly:

He lurches here and here by guess

And God and hope and hopelessness.

Even the aerobatic swift

Has not his flying-crooked gift."

"Flying Crooked," by Robert Graves, is often presented as being a mockery of ineptitude.  The cabbage white does have an erratic zig-zagging flight, but I think modern opinion favors this pattern as enhancing evasion of avian predators.  Photo by me.

Wisconsin butterflies, 2024

An informative and professionally executed presentation.  Kudos to the members of the Southern Wisconsin Butterfly Association for assembling the data, and to Doug Buege for formatting the video.

SWBA homepage, with a list of field trips, info on field guides, camera, places to visit, archives of newsletters, and relevant videos.

Proof that butterflies crossed an ocean

Excerpts from a story in The New York Times:

Early one morning in late October 2013, Gerard Talavera, an entomologist, saw something highly unusual — a flock of painted lady butterflies stranded on a beach in French Guiana.

The painted lady, or the species Vanessa cardui, is one of the world’s most widespread butterflies, but it isn’t found in South America. Yet there they were, lying in the sand of the continent’s eastern shores, their wings tattered and riddled with holes.

The insect is a champion of long-distance travel, routinely crisscrossing the Sahara on a trek from Europe to sub-Saharan Africa, covering up to 9,000 miles. Could they also have made the 2,600-mile journey across the Atlantic Ocean without any place to stop and refuel?..

Dr. Talavera and his team describe a crucial clue to cracking the mystery of the stranded butterflies: Pollen clinging to the butterflies in French Guiana matched flowering shrubs in West African countries. These shrubs bloom from August to November, which matches the timeline of the butterflies’ arrival...

In addition to studying the pollen, the researchers sequenced the butterflies’ genomes to trace their lineage and found they had European-African roots. This ruled out the possibility that they had flown over land from North America. Then, they used an insect-tracking tool called isotope tracing to confirm that the butterflies’ natal origins were in Western Europe, North Africa and West Africa.

It's amazing what science is capable of nowadays.  The full scientific report is available online at Nature Communications.  The painted lady resting on my finger is one I raised some years ago from a caterpillar found on local nettles.

Distinguishing Sundial lupine and Western lupine

We have had lupine in our gardens for 10-15 years - in part because it's a showy, attractive plant, but also because it is the host plant for the caterpillars of the endangered Karner Blue butterfly.  But I didn't know until recently that there are two types of lupine.  Lupinus perennis ("Sundial lupine") is native to the eastern and midwestern U.S., while Lupinus polyphyllus ("Western lupine") is native in the western states.  The video embedded above explains the morphological differences between the two lupines [TLDR: the Western lupine has 11-17 leaflets on the palmate leaf, while the Sundial has 5-11].

The distinction is important because only Lupinus perennis ("Sundial lupine") will support the Karner Blues.  If Karner Blues lay their eggs on Western lupines, the cats will die.  See this excellent page from the recent Prairie Moon Nursery catalogue:

Western lupine has been introduced in the east because it is somewhat more showy, but it should not be encouraged, for the sake of the Karner Blues.

See also my 2015 post Pursuing the "Karner Blue" butterfly.

A shout-out to Prairie Moon Nursery

There has been a significant increase in recent years of nurseries offering and emphasizing native plants for gardens.  One of the best of these is Prairie Moon Nursery, based in Winona, Minnesota.  We have purchased seed packets from them for several years, and when their catalogue arrived yesterday [as archetypal springtime garden porn] I was delighted to see that they now incorporate into the catalogue the names and photos of the lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) that use these plants as host plants (i.e. as depositories for eggs and thus food for the caterpillars - as opposed to nectar plants supporting adult pollinators).  Here is a sample page:

Some of this information is also codified in a massive table to big to embed -

- but easy to access via the Prairie Moon Nursery website.

New information about lepidoptera

New for me, at least - and quite interesting.  The commentary by Ze Frank is occasionally hard to hear, so clicking subtitles might be helpful.  Embedded below are a couple screencaps.  You can fast-forward through the one-minute advertisement at 7:14.  Via Neatorama.

What butterfly enthusiasts do in the winter

Spotted yesterday

Uncommonly seen in Wisconsin because it is an immigrant from warmer climes to the south, this Common Buckeye greeted me yesterday at the University of Wisconsin Arboretum.   It was keeping the wings horizontal to maximize the solarizing process on a coolish afternoon.  I only see about one or two per year, so this was a pleasant surprise.

A butterfly field trip in Wisconsin

To be clear, this is not how a "typical" afternoon of butterflying goes.  This was filmed at a prime location by an experienced butterfly enthusiast.  But it does give the newbie a sense of what butterflyers do, and might serve as a stimulus for someone to locate and visit their local club, because field trips are great recreational and social experiences.

One more video to share for citizen scientists eager to learn about the subject matter:

An introduction to butterflying

Created by a good friend in the Southern Wisconsin Butterfly Association.  There are some additional videos at this channel, which I'll plan to post later.

Batesian mimicry

Posted on April 1 - not to fool you, but to demonstrate how Nature fools Nature.

The strategy of pretending to be something other than what you really are is of course common, and not just for humans. In my backyard in Connecticut, for instance, the caterpillar of the swallowtail butterfly Papilio troilus does a brilliant imitation of bird poop, to avoid being eaten by birds. Later in its development, it turns green and produces eyespots so it can pretend to be a snake.

In Malaysia, a spectacular adult moth, Macrocilix maia, one-ups the poop mimics by mimicking bird poop on its body, and two flies feeding on the poop on its wings... All this is just Batesian mimicry. We’re not even going to talk about Müllerian, Wasmannian or Bakerian mimicry.

More at The Grand Animal Costume Party.  Photo credit: Gerry Images/Flickr RF

Not to be confused with crypsis, BTW.

The Butterfly Nebula

An Astronomy Photo of the Day, from NASA.

"This sharp close-up was recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope and is processed here to show off remarkable details of the complex planetary nebula, highlighting in particular light emitted by oxygen (shown as blue), hydrogen (green), and nitrogen (red). NGC 6302 lies about 3,500 light-years away in the arachnologically correct constellation of the Scorpion (Scorpius). Planetary nebulas evolve from outer atmospheres of stars like our Sun, but usually fade in about 20,000 years."

Sneezeweed (Helenium)

Photo credit to Marcie O'Connor from the September journal entry at the outstanding Prairie Haven blog.

Helenium is a genus of annuals and herbaceous perennial plants in the family Asteraceae, native to the Americas. They bear yellow or orange daisy-like composite flowers. A number of these species (particularly Helenium autumnale) have the common name sneezeweed, based on the former use of their dried leaves in making snuff... The genus is named for Helen of Troy... Numerous cultivars have been developed for garden use - mainly from H. autumnale and H. bigelovii. They are useful for late summer and fall bloom, usually in less formal compositions. They are appropriate for native gardens in areas where they are indigenous, and they look wonderfully in bouquets.

I'll add her photo of a Common Buckeye:

And this chart of their annual Monarch counts - 

Prairie Haven is located in western Wisconsin close enough to the Mississippi River to sample one of the major flyways for migrating Monarchs.  Their experience of seeing fewer Monarchs this summer echoes our much more limited experience here in Madison (and note the chart is on a log scale).

Buzz stop

An article at The Guardian notes that some bus stop shelters are being transformed into gardens for pollinators.

Leicester is leading the charge with 30 bee bus stops installed since 2021. Derby has 18, and there are others in Southhampton, Newcastle, Sunderland, Derby, Oxford, Cardiff and Glasgow. Brighton council installed one last year after a petition was signed by almost 50,000 people...

The average bus shelter has a shelf life of at least 20 years. Ones with living roofs have to be specially designed because the soil is so heavy, especially when it is full of water, and Clear Channel is installing them only where shelters need replacing...

Clear Channel is working with the Wildlife Trusts to maximise the benefit to wildlife. Native flowers such as kidney vetch, thyme, selfheal and wild marjoram have been chosen to attract a range of pollinators including common carder bees, buff-tailed bumblebees, peacock butterflies, small tortoiseshell butterflies and chequered hoverflies. As well as the wildlife benefits, the roofs also absorb rainwater, and make a small contribution to offsetting the urban heat island effect...

Dutch cities have managed to stabilise urban bee populations in recent years, a study found last year, following decades of declines, and bee hotels and bee stops were among their solutions. Utrecht, which was Europe’s first city to get bee bus stops, now has more than 300. It has created a “no roofs unused” policy, in which every roof will now be greened with plants and mosses or have solar panels.

Neonicotinoid pesticides ubiquitous in Minnesota deer

I'm a firm believer in the existence of an ongoing insect apocalypse, so I was dismayed - but not surprised - to read that neonicotinoids have been documented extensively in Minnesota deer:

The pesticides linked to bee, butterfly and pollinator deaths across the nation are being found in the organs of far more of Minnesota's wild deer, and in higher concentrations, than previously thought.

State biologists found neonicotinoids in nearly all — 94% — of deer spleens collected from road kill and sent in by hunters last fall. Alarmingly, roughly two-thirds of those deer had higher concentrations of the chemicals than a threshold found to potentially lower fawn survival and cause bone and genital deformities in a captive deer study.

After growing evidence that neonicotinoids contributed to massive die-offs of honey bees and other pollinators, the European Union quickly banned them.

North America, however, embraced them. They're now used on 98% of the corn, soybean, wheat and cotton growing on the continent, according to the DNR. They're also used in lawn care and common household products such as flea and tick prevention collars for pets.

The DNR's findings on Minnesota's wild deer spleens surprised researchers because deer taken in the thick woods of northern Minnesota were just as likely to have neonicotinoids in their systems as those taken among the vast corn and soybean fields of southern Minnesota. It isn't clear exactly how the chemicals are getting into the animals, whether it's through the water they drink or from directly eating treated seeds or plants.

"There was a little bit of a 'wow' factor when we found deer in the Boundary Waters with neonics," Carstensen said. "How does that happen? It's moving in ways we don't understand."