Butterfly Time (Part 1)

The seventh annual installment of “Butterfly Magic” opened last Monday at the Tucson Botanical Gardens. The live, flying butterflies (and a few moths) will be occupying the tropical greenhouse through April, 2011, open daily from 9:30 AM until 3:00 PM, save for the obvious holidays.

This year I find myself in the position of Assistant Butterfly Curator, but Dr. Elizabeth Willott, Curator of Butterflies, is the person responsible for the success of this event. We also owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the many volunteers who actually staff the exhibit day in and day out, and who ensure that the butterflies make it from the Chrysalis Room to the greenhouse. More importantly, they make sure no butterflies escape the confines of the greenhouse. They also interpret the exhibit, sharing their knowledge of the insects with visitors and making sure our human guests have a pleasant experience. The volunteers also protect the butterflies from unintentional harm at the hands of overzealous visitors.

Our first shipment of butterfly chrysalids (pupae) arrived Friday, October 1. Elizabeth and I picked them up from the nearby FedEx store where they arrived via overnight shipment from a butterfly distributor in Denver, Colorado. At some point I hope to document the receiving and handling such shipments and sharing that with all of you. It is a very labor-intensive process. October first’s extraordinarily hot temperatures may have spelled doom for many of the specimens in the shipment. We humans were certainly sweating our way through sorting and pinning them. I finished the day pretty dehydrated and a bit light-headed.

The end result is worth the trouble, though. Among our first crop of butterflies was the Danaid Eggfly or “Mimic,” Hypolimnas misippus. The females (see image above) mimic the African Monarch and other distasteful butterflies. The males, on the other hand, look radically different (image below). Yes, those really are the same species!

Among the most populous of our new arrivals is the Mocker Swallowtail, Papilio dardanus. As you might have guessed from the common name this, too, is a species exhibiting dramatic sexual dimorphism. The females lack tails, looking very much like the milkweed butterflies they are impersonating. Males have the familiar “tails” on the wings and are boldly marked with black and white on the top side of the wings. Here is a mating pair (below).

Enjoy this species while you can, as it was denied on our United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) permit this year. Fortunately, that decision was not retroactive to our current permit with our U.S. distributor. We will be unable to import Papilio dardanus directly from its native Africa from now on, however. The caterpillars feed on citrus and are thus deemed a potential threat to that industry.

Yet another spectacular butterfly on show is the Flame-bordered Charaxes, Charaxes protoclea. It, too, is a native of Africa. This is a powerful flier, its robust body packed with muscles to operate those fiery wings.

Be sure to check out images of some additional species in Part 2 of this article, over at ”Sense of Misplaced”. Thanks, hope to see you pass through the Tucson Botanical Gardens one of these days.

(Wild) Butterfly Magic

Anyone visiting the Tucson Botanical Gardens lately who is disappointed to learn that the Butterfly Magic event begins in October hasn’t been paying enough attention to the butterflies that are flying freely around the garden outside of the tropical greenhouse. I tallied twenty-two species over the past month, most of those seen in the last week or so. Here’s the list:

• Pipevine Swallowtail, Battus philenor
• Giant Swallowtail, Papilio cresphontes

• Checkered White, Pontia protodice
• Southern Dogface, Colias cesonia
• Sleepy Orange, Eurema nicippe
• Dainty Sulphur, Nathalis iole
• Cloudless Sulphur, Phoebis sennae
• Gray Hairstreak, Strymon melinus
• Leda Ministreak, Ministrymon leda

• Marine Blue, Leptotes marina
• Western Pygmy-Blue, Brephidium exile
• Reakirt’s Blue, Hemiargus isola
• Fatal Metalmark, Calephelis nemesis
• Palmer’s Metalmark, Apodemia palmeri

• Gulf Fritillary, Agraulis vanillae
• Variegated Fritillary, Euptoieta Claudia

• Empress Leilia, Asterocampa leilia
• American Snout, Libytheana carinenta
• Queen, Danaus gilippus
• Common Sootywing, Pholisora Catullus
• Fiery Skipper, Hylephila phyleus
• Orange Skipperling, Copaeodes aurantiaca

The TBG has a dedicated butterfly garden, but there is such a diversity of plants on the grounds that something is blooming somewhere almost all the time. Water and shade are also plentiful, which benefits both the butterflies and the comfort of human patrons.

Please visit the Tucson Botanical Gardens whenever you can. There is literally something for everyone, from a Children’s Garden to a Zen Garden, to the Tropical Greenhouse. You can even bring the dog on Tuesday mornings, or stay late on the Third Thursday when you can hear a musical performance.

Butterfly Magic in Tucson

Last Sunday, January 21, I visited the “Butterfly Magic” exhibit of live tropical butterflies at the Tucson Botanical Gardens. This is the sixth anniversary of what has become an annual event, lasting several months. The current incarnation opened on October 12, 2009 and will continue through April 30, 2010.

Despite being dramatically smaller than dedicated butterfly houses like Magic Wings, the confines of the tropical greenhouse boast a surprising diversity of species. I spent more than five hours there and was finding “new” species right up until my departure. The volunteers for the exhibit release newly-emerged specimens at least three times per day, but many of the butterflies already in the room are cryptic enough to escape detection by the average visitor.

One of the unfortunate aspects of any butterfly display facility is the difficulty in taking images of the butterflies in as “natural” a setting as possible. Some of the insects seem to park themselves at those ugly feeding stations, making for far less than a photogenic opportunity.

Then it never fails that the best shot you could possibly hope for also includes an out-of-focus person in the background wearing bright clothing. How do you politely say “Ma’am, you’re in my shot?” Mostly, you wait for the background personnel to clear and hope the butterfly has waited as well.

The Tucson Botanical Gardens solve part of the photographic problem by setting aside time strictly for photographers, without competing crowds, but it is at the end of the day when the incoming sunlight is not particularly good, and they charge double the normal admission price.

Still, one can’t complain, and you can still get stunning images of a great many species. Just be prepared for the obligatory heat and humidity, and understand it will take your camera lens at least ten minutes to become steam-free. I’ll be sharing more of my own images in the coming weeks for those who want to live vicariously through my blog.

Each trip promises to be different because the TBG has scheduled different shipments of butterflies from different parts of the world each month. October and November of last year featured native butterflies from Arizona and other parts of the southern U.S. December’s butterflies were from Australia. January was for African species, and February will spotlight Asian butterflies. March and April will be a veritable cornucopia of species from throughout the world.

Admission to this special show runs $12.00 US for adults, $6.50 for children 4-12 years of age, and is free for children 3 and under. Hours of the exhibit are 10 AM – 3 PM daily. The gardens themselves are open from 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM, and worth the visit all by themselves. The TBG has been rightly called an “oasis” in the heart of midtown Tucson. Enjoy!

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