Cloudless Sulphur (Phoebis sennae) in Iowa

[Royce J. Bitzer]

Leps-L Listers,

Yesterday (August 30) I saw three P. sennae in the prairie while hiking in
the 8000-acre Walnut Creek National Wildlife Refuge, 3 miles south and 3
miles west of Prairie City, Iowa, between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. Central
Standard Time (add 1 hour to get daylight saving time).  The refuge is
mostly a large, hilly area of planted prairie that was started about eight
or nine years ago.    The weather was mostly sunny with light cirrus
overhead, in the low to mid 80s (26-29 degrees C) with little to no wind.
None of the three butterflies seemed to be migrating or otherwise moving in
any particular direction.  These are the only P. sennae I have seen
anywhere in central Iowa so far this year.  

--Royce


Royce J Bitzer
mariposa at iastate.edu
   
Dept. of Entomology    
110 Insectary          
Iowa State University  
Ames, Iowa  50011       
Phone: (515) 294-9958
                        
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~mariposa/homepage.html

The Red Admiral and Painted Lady Website
A web site to encourage and coordinate
field studies of territorial behavior
and migration of Vanessa butterflies