edited 05/11/13 - Phew! After a failed quick search of my go-to favorites for butterfly IDs, I cheated and asked
Dr. Art Shapiro from UC Davis. Once you know the spring generation has dark veins and the summer generation is almost all white, this is a fairly easy butterfly to distinguish. Then, tracking down its
currently correct name is a bugger. I'm using
Butterflies of America in the first scientific name link above, because they seem the most anal about names. However, Art does not believe most of the CA populations are conspecific with
P. marginalis and maintains the
P. napi complex (mustard whites) remains uncertain.
Years ago, I was fortunate enough to have been a museum intern and later a research assistant for Dr. Sonja Teraguchi in the first establishment years of Ohio's
Long-term Monitoring of Butterflies. My fondest memories of Ohio are from butterfly outings and workshops with Sonja, various museum volunteers, and
The Ohio Lepidopterists. That experience helped create and shape Nature ID. I was aware the program was partially based on the
Illinois Butterfly Monitoring Network, but until I started this blog, I didn't know
Art has been doing it since 1972. As an ulterior motive for contacting Dr. Shapiro,
I've been wanting to go out with him during one of his butterfly walks
for the past handful of years. I've dropped the ball, repeatedly... but not this year. Now, we're
tentatively set to go to his
Washington site in Nevada County next Tuesday. I'm looking forward to meeting him and learning from a butterfly master.
