Are there any butterfly aficionados here at DU?

[NNN0LHI]

If there are I have a couple of questions I would like to ask about them.

Thanks in advance if there are any.

Don

[2KS2KHonda]

1. Well, I like them but am not an expert. The coolest things about them are their names in

Spanish and French. :D
papillon and mariposa

:-)

[NNN0LHI]

4. I have a couple of pairs of medium sized ones hanging around the yard every year

They look identical except for the color. On pair is solid white the other is solid yellow. They follow their mates around by smell is my guess. Because they become separated by sight but always end up making a bee line back near each other.

Seems like one leads and one kind of follows?

Here is my question. They seem invisible to birds and other predators? When I cut my lawn I have birds following me to pick off the moths that fly up where I have just cut. The birds fight over them. But these white and yellow butterflies can fly around my yard right past the birds all day long unmolested? Why is that if you know? Is it the color? Or perhaps the way they fly which seems very jittery and I am guessing that may do something to the birds sense of vision?

Whatever it is they are always here every summer. All summer long. They love the sprinkler.

If you know why do the birds not eat them? And they are interesting to watch.

Don

[2KS2KHonda]

5. I'm pretty sure they don't live more than a year. Apparently their appearance

(colors and patterns) has evolved to look unappetizing to birds...or more likely they just look "too big" to eat. One thing I've noticed but can't explain is that they VERY rarely get trapped in spider webs. Or at least I don't see that if they do...and moths with plain coloration often do.

[Muttocracy]

8. some butterflies/moths are toxic to birds - they concentrate plant toxins

For example, monarchs - http://www.monarchlab.org/research/PNE/pne.aspx#Monarch

Birds may either respond to the coloration or learn by experience about the "yuck" factor. There are butterfly species that cheat by mimicing the toxic ones too!

Are you describing white and yellow sulfur (sulphur) moths?


http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/pictures/Colias_philodice.html

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/pictures/Pieridae.html

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/pictures/Lepidoptera.html

[NNN0LHI]

9. Thank you for the links and information

I find these creatures amazing.

Don

[democraticinsurgent]

2. i used to know a fair amount

...but have forgotten a lot. Try me, though, just for fun. ;-)

[Warpy]

3. Enough to grow butterfly friendly desert shrubs in my yard

and remember some unreasonable happiness when a bright blue butterfly landed on my shoulder in the butterfly house at Cypress Gardens and stayed there until I left.

I never found a chrysalis when I was a kid to watch hatch in my bedroom, but was there when other kids had them. The newly hatched butterfly was scooped into a jar and turned loose outdoors. Most were monarchs.

[azul]

6. Only people can see them,

they are the souls of the departed, and come back to give us heart. Probably kidding.

Though mostly birds avoid them from taste.

And spiders don't catch them cause it discloses their traps, though more likely the butterflies are built too robust as fliers to be caught in their flying time before they mate and die.

What I am curious about is the dearth of these bugs the last few years. Not many to be seen lately in the west side of the Big Valley in California. Some powerful newer bug killers are overstepping their bounds?

[NNN0LHI]

7. I thought it might have been taste too

But with so many birds it seems like if each one ate just one butterfly and discovered they tasted bad there still wouldn't be any butterflies left here.

Unless they grab them and realize they don't taste good so they don't swallow them and release (spit them out) most alive? Which sounds like is a distinct possibility?

Thanks for all your guys input in this thread by the way too.

Don