The 2026 "Beer-for-a-Butterfly" contest, aka "Suds for a Bug," is still underway. No one has come forth.
UC Davis Distinguished Professor Emeritus Art Shapiro, who has sponsored the contest since 1972, will trade your live cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae, for a pitcher of beer, or its equivalent.
The rules: the first person who nets or collects the first live P. rapae of the year within the three-county area of Sacramento, Yolo or Solano--and is judged the winner--gets the beer and the bragging rights. "Suds for a Bug."
"I just dreamed that I spotted what was probably the first rapae of the year, in West Sac, from a car speeding westbound on West Capitol Avenue, with no chance to stop to validate it!" Shapiro recounted in an email today. "First time I 'won' the contest in my sleep."
The point of the contest "is to get the earliest possible flight date for statistical purposes.” It's all part of his scientific research involving long-term studies of butterfly life cycles and climate change.
The butterfly inhabits vacant lots, fields and gardens where its host plants in the mustard family (Brassicaceae) grow. Hosts include cultivated vegetables like cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, collards, and mustard greens. In its larval stage, it's a pest known as the cabbageworm.
Shapiro, an internationally recognized Lepidopterist, has monitored the butterfly populations in Central California since 1972, and maintains a research website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/,
Shapiro usually wins the contest, although UC Davis graduate students have claimed the prize four times since 1972.
For the last four years, the winning site was West Sacramento, Yolo County, with Shapiro netting the butterfly and claiming the beer. He collected the 2025 winner on Jan. 23; the 2024 winner on Jan. 29; the 2023 winner on Feb. 18, and the 2022 winner on Jan. 19.
Other winning sites have included UC Davis campus (Yolo County) in 2021, Putah Creek Nature Park. Winters (Yolo County) in 2020, and the Suisun Yacht Club (Solano County) in 2019, all collected by Shapiro.
UC Davis graduate student Jacob Montgomery netted the 2016 winner in West Davis, and shared a beer with Shapiro at The Graduate, now gone.
If you have a prospective winner or need more information, contact Shapiro at theochila@gmail.com or amshapiro@ucdavis.edu.
Cover image: UC Davis Distinguished Professor Emeritus Art Shapiro. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)