Antennae vs. antennas

[Mark Walker]

> The gulf fritillary is a paricularly blatant one: it is not 
> even a fritillary at all, but only looks like one.  Thanks to its common 
> name, I never learned that until I was in college (I should say here that 
> I became interested in entomology around age 6, when we had a passionvine 
> covering our backyard fence and they came to it.  That was 1949, two 
> whole decades almost to the day before I set foot in Harvey Kirk's field 
> biology class at Santa Monica College.)!
> 
I do remember A. vanillae as one of the most exciting Southern California
butterflies when I was growing up (just before Pierre started at Santa
Monica College, sometime in 1966).  I'll never forget the first time that I
saw them in numbers on a passionvine behind some furniture store in Long
Beach, CA.  My parents had allowed my sister and I to stay in the car, and
we were pretending to be driving (my parents would probably be arrested for
this irresponsible behavior today).  I had previously only seen a handful,
and had collected only a specimen or two, but had always marvelled over the
beautiful silver spotting.  When I saw them  (literally by the dozens) out
of the rear view mirror, I was in awe.  Our driving game came to an abrupt
end, and I went out to watch them.  It may very well have been the first
time that I passed on catching and decided only to observe.  I was 8 years
old.  I was proud to know the common name - which I pronounced Fri-till-ary.

Mark Walker.