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

First of all, it’s .��(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.��

[The BugLady apologizes in advance to the fine folks at 51����, who do such a dynamite job of formatting BOTW for the archives.��There are an excessive number of links in this episode.��You guys are awesome!]

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 , they’re in the tribe Heliconiini, aka the Heliconians or Longwings, many of which occur in tropical climes and have long, slim, spectacular wings:

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.����(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 18^th��century naturalist/painter Maria Sibylla Merian, but the species doesn’t use vanilla plants. If you’re not familiar with her, .��

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 . 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; .

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 (, 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 .��

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, .��

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 , give it a second look, just to be sure.��

The BugLady

The post Gulf Fritillary – a Snowbird Special appeared first on Field Station.

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). 

Click on each photo to read more.

Great Spangled Fritillary

A butterfly 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 .��Eggs in ooethecae can survive a mild winter here but not a Polar Vortex; . 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. Read here for more info on gray field slugs.������������

Candy-Striped Leafhopper

When a spectacular insect picks an equally spectacular perch. What a treat!

Brown-Marmorated Stink Bug

This 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 Sulfurs

They 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

They 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., 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, while others hatch in spring.��They emerge from the egg sac, and after a few days, balloon away in the breezes. 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.

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.

Eastern Pondhawk

And an pondhawk in a pear tree.

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

The BugLady

The post The Twelve (or so) Bugs of Christmas appeared first on Field Station.