Odd habitats --

Kondla, Norbert FOR:EX Norbert.Kondla at gems3.gov.bc.ca
Mon Sep 10 11:10:49 EDT 2001


After shoveling the black bear crap off my back lawn late Friday afternoon I
fired up the lawnmower to attend to that domestic chore. Along the way a
butterfly feebly fluttered up in front of the mower. It took a fraction of a
second to recognize it as Neophasia menapia. Of course I dutifully pounced
on it with both hands to provide a voucher for a future map dot for Genelle.
Butterflies do wander but it never occurred to me that I would see this
resident of tree tops in needle-leaved coniferous forests loitering on lawn
grass in a semi-urban area surrounded by broad-leaved deciduous forest.
Saturday I ran into a real shocker. Rambled along a logging road at mid
elevation in classic cedar/hemlock etc conifer forest in valley bottom
riparian situation to check out the nymphalids that frequent such areas.
shocked to find freshly emerged males and females of Hesperia juba visiting
the knapweed at the edge of the road. This butterfly is normally reported in
the books to inhabit the low, xeric, non forest or open forest habitats. No
such habitat was present anywhere close to where I found these. closest
thing was a cutblock that was well on its way to being a new forest. I guess
Dornfeld in Butterflies of Oregon was right in observing that juba "readily
adapts to a wide variety of ecological environments". Appearance note: Some
books say juba has yellow-brown or brown or green brown ventral hindwing.
Maybe this fits somewhere in the range of this species. Now that I have
examined over 100 BC specimens I can safely report that here they have a
green ventral hindwing altho when flight worn they can look brownish green.
PS. I have gotten used to living, working and recreating in bear habitat and
I don't even mind their raids on my fruit trees but I do wish that bold
bruin that dumped a load 6 feet from our bedroom window would go somewhere
else :-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Norbert Kondla  P.Biol., RPBio.
Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management
845 Columbia Avenue, Castlegar, British Columbia V1N 1H3
Phone 250-365-8610
Mailto:Norbert.Kondla at gems3.gov.bc.ca       
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca


 
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