I can’t pretend any artistic expertise, entomological or otherwise. But one can always hope, if there’s a good guide to help me figure out how.
Check out this new release from Timber Press. The Insect Artist: How to Observe, Draw, and Paint Butterflies, Bees, and More by Zebith S. Thalden, $27.99
With the demise of BioQuip in 2022, the lep community — and ecologists in general — lost one of the best stocked and most dependable suppliers of field and collection tools and resources available. A number of new and established vendors have stepped in to fill this void, and Caitlan LaBar has thoughtfully updated her list of entomology equipment suppliers on the Northwest Butterflies blog.
And just in time for the temperate zone butterfly season, too!
The lep community has known for quite some time that moths are capable of detecting and taking evasive action when they hear the vocalizations of predators, especially bats. And while scientists have found auditory sensing organs on some butterflies as well, if and how they use these has not been as extensively studied.
Researchers from the University of Arkansas and their colleagues, however, have discovered that males of the Postman butterfly, Heliconius melpomene, detect and take evasive action when the calls of one of their resident bird predators are played.
Rufous-tailed jacamars are widespread and common insectivorous birds in the range of Heliconius melpomene plessini, the subspecies the researchers studied. The birds look like a forest version of a kingfisher, with long pointed bills that they use to capture insect prey, especially wasps. But butterflies and dragonflies are also on the jacamar menu in the Central and South American habitats where the Postman flies.
Heliconius butterflies generally have evolved a wide rage of defense mechanisms against predation, the research team noted. They are toxic, unpalatable, display aposematic colouration, form Müllerian mimicry rings, and roost communally to avoid bird and bat predation. This might suggest that they don’t really need much extra predation defense from jacamars.
Nevertheless, when the scientists played jacamar calls in the greenhouse where the Postman butterflies were raised, the males immediately changed behavior, increasing their fluttering and walking instead of flying during the jacamar playback and for a short period (about 3 minutes) afterwards. There was no longer-term behavior change, nor did females show any reaction to the jacamar calls.
Nor did they react to background noise played in the greenhouse, or to the calls of two other migratory predators in their range — eastern and tropical kingbirds. And even the calls of the jacamar failed to change the butterflies’ intersexual behavior.
“Heliconius melpomene plessini butterflies changed their behaviour in response to predatory rufous-tailed jacamar calls but did not change their behaviour in response to predatory Eastern kingbird or tropical kingbird calls,” the team concluded. “We found a sex-specific difference in behaviour, where males, but not females, increased their fluttering and walking behaviours during the playback of the rufous-tailed jacamar calls. The observed behavioural changes in response to rufous-tailed jacamar calls are short-term and do not persist over an extended duration of time.”
The researcher posit two possible reasons for why the butterflies reacted to jacamars but not kingbirds. One, the jacamars are a year-round threat, while the kingbirds are migrants that also eat a lot of fruit during their winter sojourn in the tropics where the Postman is found. Overall, the scientists suspect, predation pressure from the kingbirds could be much less than from jacamars.
Two, the calls of the two kingbirds are in a much different auditory frequency than the jacamars, and it’s possible the auditory organs of the butterflies can “hear” the jacamar but not the kingbirds.
That the butterflies are only reacting to predatory bird calls was studied by playing recordings of toco toucan calls in the greenhouse. The toucan calls are in the same frequency range as jacamars, but toucans don’t eat the butterflies. The butterflies had no reaction to the toco toucans.
The authors suggest this might be similar to the scenario where “aposematic striped skunks (Mephitis mephitis) perform anti-predatory behaviour in response to the calls of the great horned owl (Bubo virginianus) from which they are not chemically defended, but not in response to the calls of the coyote (Canis latrans), from which they are chemically defended.”
As to the sex-specific behavior change, the authors note that the males of a number of other species across the animal kingdom react differently than do females. “This male-specific response to predators is similar to that found in other species, and may reflect sexual dimorphic predation pressures,” they surmise, since males range widely through the middle of the forest landscape while females are mostly in the understory near their larval/food host plants. Since jacamars are “hawking” feeders — they dart out from perches to snag passing insects — they might pose more of a risk to male Heliconius butterflies than to females.
The paper is currently available as a preprint that has not yet been reviewed on bioRxiv.
Alternatively, you can read a PDF version in the LepLog library:
[From the Associated Press 2024 Feb. 28]
A Long Island man has pleaded guilty to illegally trafficking birdwing butterflies and other rare insects, according to a plea deal filed in Brooklyn federal court Tuesday.
Charles Limmer, 75, of Commack, pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to smuggle wildlife into the country and agreed to pay a $30,215 penalty as well as hand over his collection of roughly 1,000 butterflies, moths and other insects. He faces up to 5 years in prison when sentenced.
Some of the dried specimens include birdwing butterflies, which are among the rarest and largest in the world.
Limmer was indicted last year on six counts related to wildlife smuggling, including violations of the federal Lacey Act’s prohibitions on falsely labeling and trafficking in wildlife. He could have received a 20-year sentence if convicted at trial.
They said Limmer circumvented U.S. laws by labeling shipments as “decorative wall coverings,” “origami paper craft” and “wall decorations.” He sold some of the dried lepidoptera specimens through an eBay account under the name “limmerleps,” pocketing tens of thousands of dollars.
Federal prosecutors said Limmer worked with overseas collaborators to smuggle some 1,000 lepidoptera, including some of the most endangered moths and butterflies in the world, even after his import/export license was suspended in Oct. 2022.
Federal law prohibits the commercial export or import of wildlife without permission from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
If you haven’t yet figured out a good reason to participate in our spring and summer North American Butterfly Association (NABA) butterfly counts, here’s one: It’s good for you.
A team of scientists from the University of Derby in the UK says that it’s been long established that citizen science activities like butterfly counts improve “nature connectedness,” behaviors and values that support biodiversity awareness and conservation. But, they wondered: What’s in it for the counters?
The researchers identified a sample of more than 300 participants in the UK’s 2022 Big Butterfly Count, a mass-participation citizen science effort that regularly engages some 60,000 people each year. The team told their subjects that they would be completing three surveys at pre-, post- and follow-up time points, and the participants gave their consent to receive the invitations for subsequent surveys when agreeing to take part in the research.
Characteristics that the Derby team analyzed included nature (inter)connectedness; health and wellbeing (including self-rated health, mental well-being, and personal well-being); nature noticing; and emotional experiences related to the Big Butterfly Count experience. The first survey opened during Big Butterfly Count sign-up and closed just before the Count(s) began, the second survey was sent within the two weeks after the end of the Count period, and the final survey came about three weeks after the second survey closed.
The researchers observed that the most widely reported experience was one of enjoyment, with people reporting that they liked, loved, enjoyed, ‘always looked forward to’ taking part in the count, or that it was fun, lovely, and a pleasure. For some participants, the basis for their enjoyment and pleasure was the opportunity ‘to just sit quietly’, which allowed them to relax, take their mind off other things and into a ‘peaceful place.’ Some compared it to meditation or mindfulness and ‘being totally in the present moment.’
Many participants reported lower anxiety and increased well-being. Some even credit
Taking part in the count with helping them through difficult times, and many people commented on wellbeing benefits:
Going away from my house to look for butterflies has been a huge solace for me these past few weeks (…) counting the butterflies and watching their activities absolutely helps my wellbeing.
We often hear the same feedback from our NABA counts in Maryland.
The strength of the association was also correlated with positive emotions or experiences during the count, the authors said. This may account for the fact that other researchers didn’t find as strong a correlation between citizen science activities and various aspects of wellbeing. The butterfly count researchers note Lynch et al. (2018) found no significant change in nature relatedness amongst a small sample of citizen scientists involved in a range of entomological studies, although interviews revealed participants’ increased awareness and appreciation of insects. Similarly, Ganzevoort and van den Born (2021) did not find significant increases in measures of nature relatedness amongst citizen scientists in the Dutch National Bee Survey, although participants reported enhanced appreciation of wild bees.
On the other hand, they found, “While enjoyment was the most common emotional response reported, there were many comments expressing sadness and concern about observing declining numbers and diversity of butterflies. People referred back to their experience of taking part in previous years’ counts, or their memories of earlier decades in which there was much greater abundance of butterflies and other insects.” Increased facility in ‘noticing nature’ more broadly also was evident in the study cohort, and participating in the butterfly count increased the level of ‘hope and helping’ for conservation action and other pro-nature activities.
The impact on reduced anxiety and wellbeing, however, didn’t persist and was no longer statistically significant by the third survey, suggesting that regular involvement in citizen science activities is important for maintaining health and wellbeing gains from things like butterfly watching and counting.
“Citizen science participation prompts people to notice and enjoy nature in ways that enhance their wellbeing and connection with nature, supporting the mutual health of people and the rest of the natural world,” the authors conclude. “[Our work] highlights the potential for nature-based citizen science to benefit conservation beyond the focal species or habitat, by changing how people think, feel and act towards nature more broadly.”
The work was published in the 2024 March 04 issue of the journal Biological Conservation.
View a PDF of the article here:
The Maryland Department of Natural Resources is currently recruiting for a Senior Natural Resources Technician I (seasonal contractual position) to survey for rare insects in MD. Although much of this position will entail survey and identification work, duties will also include data entry, GIS mapping, and creating or revising conservation recommendations. This position will be based out of Tawes State Office Building in Annapolis, MD but will require traveling all across the state. See the full position description at https://www.jobapscloud.com/MD/sup/bulpreview.asp?R1=24&R2=002293&R3=0015
For anyone exploring the butterflies of the Caribbean, Malcolm Barcant’s 1970 “Butterflies of Trinidad and Tobago” still occupies a favored spot on the bookshelf. As Barcant was fond of saying, for its size Trinidad (not so much Tobago) is one of the most butterfly-rich places on the planet. Between the two small islands, they host some 750 butterfly species.
A chartered accountant by trade, collecting and identifying neotropical butterflies was Barcant’s real vocation. By the time he decided to emigrate to the US (Florida) in 1976, he had amassed an enviable collection of butterflies from Trinidad and Tobago, which he donated to the Angostura Company (they of bitters fame, on the occasion of their 150th anniversary celebration). The collection, numbering some 6,000 specimens, is housed in a purpose-built room on the company grounds, where it may still be viewed and accessed by lepidopterists today.
Barcant died in Florida in 1986. He is memorialized by two eponymic species, Heliconius hecale barcanti and Pachythone barcanti.
“Butterflies of Trinidad and Tobago,” now long out of print, generated considerable criticism at publication when Barcant decided to forego traditional classification schemes and instead presented his work in simple lay language and arranged by habitat, not taxonomy.
A tribute article to Barcant begins on page 90 of the 2014 issue of the Bulletin of the Royal Entomological Society.
Unsurprisingly, many pollinators use chemical cues to find the flowers they visit, but few seem to be as well-equipped with olfactory senses as sphingid moths. Unlike dayflying pollinators, they appear to have few visual signals to guide them through the dark to their preferred plants.
One of those plants is evening primrose, a genus (Oenothera) of widely distributed flowers that bloom at night. Oenothera pallida, the pale evening-primrose, is widely distributed in North American desert landscapes. Its principal pollinators are hawkmoths, especially Hyles lineata (the White-lined Sphinx) and Manduca sexta (the Tobacco Hawkmoth). Both find their plants in the desert night by olfactory cues, and these strong-flying, robust moths can follow the scent trail for a kilometer or more to pollinate them.
Various researchers, however, have noted a decline in nighttime pollination activity by these and other moths in urbanized areas. A research team led by Jeremy Chan (then at the University of Washington, now at the University of Naples) suggests that decline results from smoggy and polluted air that diminishes the ability of hawkmoths to find evening primroses.
In the lab, Chan et al first characterized all the likely scent compounds that might be used by the moths. These floral volatiles, they discovered, were significantly degraded by ozone and nitrogen dioxide at concentrations these pollutants are likely to be found in urbanized environments.
Next, they tested the flower-finding capacity of hawkmoths in wind tunnels where they set up primrose scent at the far end. When ozone and nitrogen oxide were introduced into the ambient air at concentrations expected from urban pollution, the ability of Manduca to find the scent target dropped by half, and Hyles couldn’t find it all.
Finally, they moved the experiment to the field, where they placed odor-enhanced fake flowers around the landscape and found they were as attractive to the moths as real flowers. But when they altered the scent with pollutants, they had the same results as in the lab: Pollination visits to the flowers plummeted.
Interestingly, nitrogen dioxide was the more powerful pollutant in this case, and ozone on its own didn’t affect pollination that much.
Based on these data, the authors plotted where the effect of urban air pollution would be expected to be the most disruptive. Western North America, much of Europe, the Middle East, Central and South Asia, and southern Africa were judged to be most likely impacted. Moreover, nighttime pollution was suspected to be more problematic, since sunlight quickly degrades nitrogen dioxide during the day.
“Pollution from human activity is altering the chemical composition of critical scent cues, and altering it to such an extent that the pollinators can no longer recognize it and respond to it,” said co-author and University of Washington (UW) biology professor Jeff Riffell to the UW news service. “The NO3 is really reducing a flower’s ‘reach’ — how far its scent can travel and attract a pollinator before it gets broken down and is undetectable.”
Grishin, Zhang et al have been busy doing more genetic analysis that looks to again upend a lot of conventional thinking about many New World butterflies.
In addition to a host of new (mostly Neotropical) species, the latest paper from the group clarifies or re-imagines some of the existing species relationships for some 40 taxa using the established genomic analysis methodologies for a suite of protein-coding genes the team has used in its numerous past publications.
Of perhaps the most interest to US (and especially Eastern US) readers is the description of a new subspecies to represent eastern populations of Eastern Tailed-blue (formerly Cupido comyntas comyntas). This is because the type specimen for Eastern Tailed-blue actually was a specimen from California, representing a distinct subspecies in its own right.
As they explain, “the nominate Cupido comyntas (Godart, [1824]) is the western subspecies with a likely type locality in California. As a result, no available name applies to the eastern USA subspecies formerly known as ‘Cupido comyntas comyntas’.…This new subspecies differs from other C. comyntas subspecies by the following characters: darker and browner (vs. grayer) ventral side of wings with more distinct whitish framing of dark spots; typically a complete row of marginal and submarginal spots beneath, particularly on the forewing (these spots are usually poorly expressed or lacking towards the apex in other subspecies); and brighter orange (vs. paler and yellower) ventral hindwing tornal crescents.”
The new subspecies, Cupido (Everes) comyntas orientalis Grishin, is of course one of the East’s most common summer butterflies, on the wing in overlapping broods throughout the summer. Going west, the species peters out at the Rocky Mountains, and then appears again west of the mountains. Since the type locality of Cupido comyntas was discovered to be California, the subspecies comyntas comyntas would refer to this western populations. Hence the need for a new subspecies name for eastern populations (and orientalis of course means “of the east”).
Review this and all the other changes in the full paper:
Meadow Brown, Maniola jurtina, is one of the classic butterflies of the Palearctic. It’s long been studied as a model for how genetics affects phenology, in this case, the variation in the number of spots on the ventral hindwing, which can range from none to six per wing. Historically (beginning with the seminal research of EB Ford in the 1940s that heralded the beginning of the “new systematics”), this variation has been regarded as a reflection of genetic polymorphism.
More recent work, however, suggests that the number of spots is influenced by environmental factors as much as by genetics, and that climate change may reduce spotting to few or none at all.
Sophie Mowbray from the University of Exeter and her colleagues recently argue that, for females at least, the number of spots is influenced by the temperature at which the butterfly develops as a caterpillar and pupates. This accounts at least partially for the variation in the number of spots across a given season, with more spots on early/cool season butterflies, and fewer in later season broods,
But the researchers also noted a longer-term trend toward fewer spots as a consequence of generally higher temperatures from global warming.
Over time, they say, “it also suggests that our warming climate will drive further loss of butterfly spottiness year on year across the United Kingdom.”
The Meadow Brown was uniquely suited to this kind of work, Mowbray et al explain, because it has overlapping broods throughout the flight season. Moreover, the team collected intensively in their study sites so that the specimens were always fresh and that scale wear wouldn’t affect spot appearance. The study areas were all in the UK.
Corresponding author Richard ffrench-Constant noted to the news site earth.com, “This is an unexpected consequence of climate change. We tend to think about species moving north, rather than changing appearance.”
One hypothesis put forward to explain the trend is that hindwing spots apparently function as part of the cryptic camouflage of the butterflies. When the surrounding grasses are uniformly dry and brown, as one would expect as global temperatures rise and impact meadowlands, fewer spots and a solid brown hindwing may be more advantageous. In a wetter environment, the spots may help the butterfly blend in with a more varied background.
LepLog 