- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
But he'll have a beer anyway!
UC Davis distinguished professor Art Shapiro, Department of Evolution and Ecology, didn't sponsor his annual public "Beer for a Butterfly" contest this year but he recorded his first-of-the-year sighting of a cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae, at 1:25 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 19 in West Sacramento near a railroad embankment.
"Pop Goes the Pieris!" Shapiro emailed to his colleagues.
And it was exactly the day that his colleague-collaborator Matt Forister, the Trevor McMinn Endowed Professor in Biology, Foundation Professor, at the University of Nevada, calculated it would be sighted.
Forister, who received his doctorate in ecology in 2004 at UC Davis, studying with Shapiro, crafts "The First Flight Date" graphics, using Shapiro's statistics. "And.... as if we had coordinated efforts (which we didn't), here's the graph!" Forister wrote in an email. "Art, you nailed it right on the regression line this time, you deserve an extra beer."
Shapiro, who maintains a research website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.
For scientific purposes, Shapiro seeks the first cabbage-white-butterfly-of-the year in the three-county area of Yolo, Sacramento and Solano. The contest is also known as "Suds for Bugs." The traditional rules: Catch a live cabbage white butterfly in the wild in one of those three counties, deliver it live to his department in Storer Hall, UC Davis (with the full data, exact time, date and location of the capture) and if it's the first of the year, the winner receives a pitcher of beer or its equivalent.
Due to COVID-19 pandemic precautions, however, Shapiro hasn't sponsored the contest for two years. But he's recorded the first ones he's seen.
In his Jan. 19th email documenting the sighting, Shapiro wrote:
"Today was a gorgeous day in West Sacramento--no high or middle clouds for the first time in seemingly forever. The site has the heaviest midwinter Crucifer bloom in many years. In order of abundance: Brassica kaber (wild mustard), Raphanus (wild radish), and B. campestris (field mustard). Also in bloom: Amsinckia (fiddlenecks) and a few Erodium (filaree) and (Lamium amplexicaule) giraffe heads. It looks like late February or even March. The twigs on almond are coloring up. No other tree action noted yet! 61F, N wind 5-10 mph but blocked by the RR embankment. It felt quite warm on the sheltered lee side, but in the open, exposed to the wind, it didn't.
"At 1:25 p.m., I encountered a male rapae dorsal-basking; it took flight at once. Since there is no contest again this year I had no net and there is no specimen. But there we are..." (He also saw a Vanessa atalanta or red admiral butterfly, "so 2 species, 2 bugs," he wrote.)
P. rapae inhabits vacant lots, fields and gardens where its host plants, weedy mustards, grow. The male is white. The female is often slightly buffy; the "underside of the hindwing and apex of the forewing may be distinctly yellow and normally have a gray cast,” Shapiro says. “The black dots and apical spot on the upperside tend to be faint or even to disappear really early in the season.”
Shapiro usually wins his own contest as he knows where to find them. Over the last five years, the contest statistics include:
- 2022, Jan. 19: Art Shapiro collected his first of the year at 1:25 p.m. in West Sacramento (no contest held due to COVID precautions)
- 2021, Jan. 16: Shapiro collected his first of the year at 1:55 p.m. Jan. 16 on the UC Davis campus, Yolo County (no contest held, due to COVID precautions)
- 2020, Jan. 30: Shapiro recorded his first of the year at 11:16 a.m. on Jan. 30 in Winters (he didn't net the butterfly so he said "no winner")
- 2019, Jan. 25: Shapiro collected the winner at 1:12 p.m., Jan. 25 near the Suisun Yacht Club, Solano County.
- 2018, Jan. 19: Shapiro collected the winner at 11:23 a.m. Friday, Jan. 19 West Sacramento, Yolo County
Since 2010, most of the winning butterflies were collected in West Sacramento:
- 2017: Jan. 19: Shapiro collected the winner on the UC Davis campus
- 2016: Jan. 16: Jacob Montgomery, UC Davis graduate student, collected the winner in west Davis
- 2015: Jan. 26: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2014: Jan. 14: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2013: Jan. 21: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2012: Jan. 8: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2011: Jan. 31: Shapiro collected the winner in Suisun
- 2010: Jan. 27: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
The butterfly is emerging earlier and earlier as the regional climate has warmed, says Shapiro, whose researches involves biological responses to climate change. "The cabbage white is now emerging a week or so earlier on average than it did 30 years ago here."
Shapiro has monitored butterfly population trends on transects across central California since 1972 and records the information on his research website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/. His 10 sites stretch from the Sacramento River Delta through the Sacramento Valley and Sierra Nevada mountains to the high desert of the Western Great Basin. The largest and oldest database in North America, it was recently cited by British conservation biologist Chris Thomas in a worldwide study of insect biomass.
In its larval form, the cabbage white butterfly, known as "the imported cabbageworm," is a pest of cole crops. "Cabbageworm larvae chew large, irregular holes in leaves, bore into heads, and drop greenish brown fecal pellets that may contaminate the marketed product," according to the UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program. "Seedlings may be damaged, but most losses are due to damage to marketed parts of the plant."
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The COVID-19 pandemic precautions and/or lockdown may interfere with it.
"As of now, no," says contest sponsor Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, who launched the competition in 1972.
Remember the contest?
For scientific purposes, the UC Davis professor seeks to determine the cabbage white butterfly's first flight of the year in the three-county area of Sacramento, Solano and Yolo.
The traditional rules: Catch a live cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae, in the wild in one of those three counties, deliver it live to his department office, 2320 Storer Hall, UC Davis (during work hours, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, with the full data, exact time, date and location of the capture) and if it's the first of the year, you win a pitcher of beer or its equivalent.
Shapiro, who maintains a research website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.
The butterfly inhabits vacant lots, fields and gardens where its host plants, weedy mustards, grow. The male is white. The female is often slightly buffy; the "underside of the hindwing and apex of the forewing may be distinctly yellow and normally have a gray cast,” Shapiro says. “The black dots and apical spot on the upperside tend to be faint or even to disappear really early in the season.”
Shapiro or his graduate students have often won the contest.
Shapiro has monitored butterfly population trends on a transect across central California since 1972 and records the information on his research website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/.
Shapiro, a member of the UC Davis faculty since 1971 and author of the book, Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento Valley Regions, has studied more than 160 species of butterflies in his transect.
So suds for a bug in 2022? Well, maybe you can welcome in the New Year with suds...without a bug...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
If it's Friday, it must be "Friday Fly Day!"
And a perfect day to post an image of a fly.
This is a female tachinid, genus Peleteria, in the family Tachinidae. It is perched on a lavender in Vacaville, Calif. The genus is characterized by two prominent setae in front of the lower part of the eye.
I've seen tachinids lay eggs in monarch caterpillars and in monarch chrysalids. The fly larvae eat the host from the inside out. The hostess with the mostest?
However, tachinids are considered important biological controls because they lay their eggs in such pests as cabbage white butterfly larvae (Pieris rapae).
See the UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management website for more on tachinids.
Interesting critters, don't you think?
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Shapiro spotted a cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae, at 1:55 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 16 on the UC Davis campus, just south of the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, located at 254 Old Davis Road.
“At 1:55 p.m., I saw a male rapae flying a linear path along the edge of the waste ground between campus parking lot 1 and the railroad track, heading east,” he wrote in an email. “It stopped to nectar at a large Raphanus (wild radish) plant. That was directly south of the Manetti-Shrem Art Museum. I did not have a net and, there being no contest requiring a voucher, I did not care. It was 72F and clear with a trace of NE wind. I kept going. This is the earliest rapae since i.16.16 (Jan. 16, 2016)."
"Wouldn't it have been nice for the first one to be on the day of Biden's inauguration?" he asked.
Colleague Matthew Forister, the Trevor J. McMinn Research Professor of Biology at the University of Nevada and a former graduate student of Shapiro's, analyzes and graphs the annual data. "The observed day (Jan. 16) is a couple of days earlier than the line would have predicted--in a funny twist of fate, before adding the new data point, the predicted day for this year was inauguration day!" Shapiro launched the contest in 1972 as part of his scientific research to determine the first flight of the Pieris rapae.
The traditional rules: if you collect the first live cabbage white butterfly of the year in the three-county area of Sacramento, Solano and Yolo, and deliver it to 2320 Storer Hall, UC Davis campus, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday (and detail the exact time, date and location of your capture), and it's judged the winner, you win a pitcher of beer or its equivalent. It's all in the name of research.
This year, however, Shapiro canceled the beer-for-a-butterfly contest "because (a) all the bars are closed open-endedly and (b) the level of circulating virus is so high that I am remaining in Davis and restricting myself to walkable sites to visit until it becomes less dangerous."
Since 1972, the first flight has varied from Jan. 1 to Feb. 22, averaging about Jan. 20.
In 2020, Shapiro spotted the first-cabbage-white-of-the-year at 11:16 a.m., Jan. 30 at Putah Creek Nature Park, Winters but didn't claim the prize as he didn't collect it. "It flew back and forth across Putah Creek and then departed the area, flying out of reach above the trees," he noted.
Shapiro, who usually finds the first butterflies, has been defeated only four times, and all by UC Davis graduate students: Jacob Montgomery in 2016; Adam Porter in 1983; and Sherri Graves and Rick VanBuskirk each defeated him in the late 1990s.
The list includes:
- 2019: Jan. 25: Art Shapiro collected the winner near the Suisun Yacht Club, Suisun City, Solano County
- 2018: Jan. 19: Art Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento, Yolo County
- 2017: Jan. 19: Art Shapiro collected the winner on the UC Davis campus
- 2016: Jan. 16: Jacob Montgomery, UC Davis graduate student, collected the winner in west Davis
- 2015: Jan. 26: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2014: Jan. 14: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2013: Jan. 21: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2012: Jan. 8: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2011: Jan. 31: Shapiro collected the winner in Suisun, Solano County
- 2010: Jan. 27: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
The butterfly inhabits vacant lots, fields and gardens where its host plants, weedy mustards, grow. In its larval stage, it's known as the imported cabbageworm, and is a major pest of cole crops, including cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and kale.
No doubt Shapiro will also remember Jan. 16 as a "five-in-one-day." He saw five different butterfly species as he walked around the Old Davis Road area and the north central residential area. The four others: Red admiral, Vanessa atalanta; Gulf Fritillary, Agraulis vanillae; West Coast Lady, Vanessa Annabella; and the Mourning Cloak, Nymphalis antiopa.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
No suds for a bug in 2021.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic precautions, butterfly guru Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, won't be hosting his annual Beer-for-a-Butterfly Contest, which he launched in 1972 as part of his scientific research to determine the first flight of the cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae.
Or, as he says, the contest is in "diapause."
The traditional rules: if you collect the first live cabbage white butterfly of the year in the three-county area of Sacramento, Solano and Yolo, and deliver it to 2320 Storer Hall, UC Davis campus, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday (and detail the exact time, date and location of your capture), and it's judged the winner, you win a pitcher of beer or its equivalent.
Since 1972, the first flight has varied from Jan. 1 to Feb. 22, averaging about Jan. 20.
Who won in 2020? Technically, there was no winner, as Shapiro didn't collect the one he spotted in Winters at 11:16 a.m. on Jan. 30, 2020 at the Putah Creek Nature Park. "It flew back and forth across Putah Creek and then departed the area, flying out of reach above the trees," he noted. He waited around for 90 minutes to see if it would return. It did not.
No one else came forth with a cabbage white so the date of Jan. 30 stands as the first of 2020.
The point of the contest "is to get the earliest possible flight date for statistical purposes," the professor related. "The rules require that the animal be captured and brought in alive to be verified. That way no one can falsely claim to have seen one, or misidentify something else as a cabbage white."
Shapiro, who maintains a research website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu, has been defeated only four times, and all by UC Davis graduate students: Jacob Montgomery in 2016; Adam Porter in 1983; and Sherri Graves and Rick VanBuskirk each defeated him in the late 1990s.
In 2019. Shapiro collected the first cabbage white butterfly near the Suisun Yacht Club, Suisun City, Solano County, at 1:12 p.m., Friday, Jan. 25. "It was the earliest recorded in Suisun City in 47 seasons."
In recent years, most winners collected the butterflies in Yolo County:
- 2018: Jan. 19: Art Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento, Yolo County
- 2017: Jan. 19: Art Shapiro collected the winner on the UC Davis campus
- 2016: Jan. 16: Jacob Montgomery, UC Davis graduate student, collected the winner in west Davis
- 2015: Jan. 26: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2014: Jan. 14: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2013: Jan. 21: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2012: Jan. 8: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2011: Jan. 31: Shapiro collected the winner in Suisun, Solano County
- 2010: Jan. 27: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
The butterfly inhabits vacant lots, fields and gardens where its host plants, weedymustards, grow. In its larval stage, it's known as the importedcabbageworm, and is a major pest of cole crops, including cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, collards, kale, and kohlrabi. The larvae "chew large, irregular holes in leaves, bore into heads, and drop greenish brown fecal pellets that may contaminate the marketed product, according to the UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM) Pest Management Guidelines. "Seedlings may be damaged, but most losses are due to damage to marketed parts of the plant."
"The adult cabbage butterfly is white with one to four black spots on the wings; they are often seen fluttering around the fields," UC IPM says. "The whitish, rocket-shaped eggs are laid singly on the undersides of leaves. The cabbageworm is active throughout the year in California."
Bottom line: COVID canceled the 2021 scientific contest for Pieris rapae ("on your mark, get set, don't go!) but it can't cancel an adult's preference for beer. A beer for no butterfly?
And by the way, Professor Shapiro says "I will gladly accept records. I will neither sample nor go out for a beer until I'm vaccinated." (Email him at amshapiro@ucdavis.edu)