Late Season Leps

[Leptraps at aol.com]

I was not surprised by Ron Gatrelle's find of late season leps in the mountains of North Carolina in October. I also have found Colias philodice and Colias eurytheme having an incredible year, including October.

Earlier this year I posted to Leps-L my account and experience in rearing both species of Colias. I am currently on my sixth brood of C. eurytheme and the fifth brood of philodice. The fifth brood of eurytheme pupated in mid-September and unlike the proceeding four broods, the fifth brood began emerging within a week of the pupae turning green or purple (two color forms), or five days after they pupated and they all emerge within 4 or 5 days.  However, they did not all emerge in a few days but have been emerging at the rate of four or five a day since the 21st of September. Further, the first four females mated and have laid eggs and the larvae are developing rapidly but are much smaller in size, The next group that I attempted to mate, most refused and the two females that did mate have yet to lay and egg. 

I have been visiting two large clover/alfalfa fields in Franklin County, Kentucky and all of the Colias that I have reared have mirrored the ones I have collected in these clover fields. Also, these are the same field that I obtained my plants for rearing. I reared all of the larvae on potted plants of Alfalfa and three species of Trifolium (Clover). I believe that the sixth brood will emerge during an Indian Summer weather pattern later in the year, or early in the spring next year. These will produce the dark green forms.

Here are some other interesting things that I found during the summer long rearing:

I never could get philodice and eurytheme to cross breed.

The only time I ever had white forms resulted  from a single orange female of eurytheme, and every female she produced was white. I never reared a white form of philodice.

I obtained ova from scores of white females of both eurytheme and philodice and they only produced colored forms. They never reproduced a the white form. Only the single female mentioned above.

The original females that I started with in April produce the first brood. I used wild collected males to mate with the females of this first brood and separated them into four family groups. The fifth brood produced both males and females that I would have though were crossed/hybrids with philodice. Evidently this yellow and orange form must be a normal color pattern and not hybrids with philodice as commonly believed. 

While digging alfalfa plants, I found a dozen larva on one plant. From this plant came my only aberrant Colias, a female eurytheme that is a knock out. She mated with a normal male and produce a normal looking brood. I also found a pupae on a wall of the bank next to the clover field that produced a multicolored white/yellow/orange/ gray female eurytheme. Again another knock out specimen. She too has laid eggs and the off springs were normal.

I also reared five broods of philodice and have yet to produced a single individual with any orange.

For all the hundreds of larva, all of them were green. The green larva would produce pupa of two color forms, 90% green and 10% purple. 

The larva of eurytheme would feed upon Alfalfa and clover. Philodice would only feed on clover and were very fond of the white clover that occurs in lawns.

I visited the two clover fields every other day or so, weather permitting. On Monday, 1 Oct. I collected a male P. m-album visiting Golden Rod along the edge of the woods. I also found several Speyeria cybele, Pterourus glaucus, Cercyonis pegala, and two female Celastrina ladon.

There is an approaching cold front that is to send the temperatures near freezing this week end. I have several bait traps that were producing very little other than worn Catocala moths, when I checked them this today however,I was stunned at the number of Polygonia comma, P. interroganationis, Nymphalis anitopa and Anaea andria that were in the traps. Dozens of each or more. I have not seen N. antiopa since early August. There were a larger than usually number of noctuid moths as well. They must be able to sense the coming cold weather.


 
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