Fall sightings and "white" Sulfurs

Dale Roberts/Bill Yule droberts03 at SNET.Net
Sun Sep 15 15:09:00 EDT 2002


Hank, Ted, Lenny and all.
     I've been enjoying the good reports of fall migrants and glad to hear folks finding good stuff. The regular butterfly populations may have been off this year and it's undeniable that Monarchs and Vanessas are way off this year for whatever reasons besides normal population fluctuations. I will reserve my opinions about whether this years nationwide Monarch scarcity is causally related to the weather die-off of wintering Monarchs in Mexico until I have a chance to examine the whole season in retrospect for a while.  None-the-less there are interesting migrants around now and I'd like to comment on Lenny's question about "white" Sulfurs.

      First my report:  I'm seeing lots of Fiery Skippers around, mostly at Van Wilgrens nursery in Branford and the Butterfly Garden at Hammonassett, but other places too.  I asked a question on Leps-L about a behavior I observed but I don't think I was taken seriously because I got only one brief response.  Maybe someone on this list has seen this:  A male Fiery Skipper landed behind a female FS and repeatedly nipped at the end of her abdomen.  Has anyone seen this behavior?  It was suggested that the male was checking to see if she was mated.  Anyone agree?  That makes sense to me but I can't find any comment on the interpretation of this behavior in my meager library.  Also I finally found Cloudless Sulfur at Hammonassett and last week I did have a Sachem at the Butterfly Garden there which I was reluctant to report since I'd never seen one before nor had any been reported in the CT Butterfly Atlas.  Now after hearing reports from HG, TH and GH and reading Harry P's post ("...you must have Sachems up there in CT...") I'm screwing up my courage and reporting what I had believed all along- one Sachem, Hammonassett Beach!  H and T's report of Ocala Skipper is exciting (another I've never seen) and I' ll be looking for that one too.
    Lenny's "whites":  Most of my field guides report the dimorphism of both Orange/Clouded Sulfur females where-in a white form occurs with regularity.  How regular? I have read somewhere that about one in ten females of some broods of  either eurytheme or philodice (again I don't remember which) are albino.  To complicate an already complicated situation (i.e. Orange and Clouded Sulfurs interbreed and produce hybrids which may or may not produce albino females??) there is also late fall broods of these butterflies that are extremely pale and tinged with light green that in some light appear on the wing to be almost white.  So if I understand a little about what is going on here it appears that seeing a white appearing Colias on the wing in September it could be an albino female Orange Sulfur or an albino female Clouded Sulfur (let's leave hybrids out of this) or it could be a late brood "pale form" of one or the other of these groups. (Or maybe it's a Cabbage White)  I'm really not helping clear this thing up very much am I?  Anyway I'm just a rookie with curiosity and enthusiasm and I could be wrong about some or most of this but hey, it's the internet... :>).   Someone with many years of collecting and observation under their belt like Alex or Ron or Harry could probably shed much more light on this fascinating subject than I and maybe someone of  their caliber will respond?

       In 1898 writing in "The Butterfly Book", W.J. Holland says the following about Orange Sulfur:  "This species has been made in recent years the subject of exhaustive study and has been discovered to be strongly polymorphic- liable to great variation.  Not only does albinism assert itself in the production of white forms, but there are many seasonal and climatic forms.  We are not yet through with our studies..."

                                                   Cheers,
                                                               Bill Yule
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