killing butterflies in New Mexico

John Shuey jshuey at TNC.ORG
Thu May 9 14:41:12 EDT 2002


Just to add fuel to the fire, I was in New Mexico last week for a meeting,
and got to spend a couple of days in the Sandia mountains.  It's still early
spring there, and the foothill butterflies were dominated by very fresh
Erynnis, and as soon as you got above about 7,000 feet - nothing was flying.

I was able to watch a few things I seldom get to see. First a few Megathymus
were out (species to be determined) and it was a great chance just to watch
and see what they do (I don't see these too often in the Midwest you know).
I probably watched perching and chasing other butterflies for at least 30
minutes, really wanting to see what happens when two males meet each other.
Unfortunately, they never did - just chased off all the E. clarus. Seeing
Mitoura spinetorum was also pretty cool.  The down side was that I was
really there to out there to collect hesperiinea, and saw exactly ONE
specimen, an Amblyscirtes species.

Anyway, in a morally criminal action I wantonly killed it.  Overall, I'd
have to say that I really enjoyed the field time (although it makes really
appreciate the mesic Midwest when I see all that dust out there - makes me
feel guilty just to take a five minute shower).

My presentation at the meeting, an overview of invertebrate conservation,
went well (yes, I propose that we even conserve those pesky moths, even
though authority has it that they are mostly pests - not deserving of they
same right to live as the six-legged birds we all love and adore).

As a complete aside and probably way off topic, there was a huge fire raging
near Cloudcroft while I was out there - does anyone know if it consumed the
habitat of the Cloudcroft Checkerspot??

John

_________________
John Shuey
Director of Conservation Science
Indiana Office of The Nature Conservancy




 
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