- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
A miss is as good as a mile...or a smile.
The Buckeye (Junonia coenia) is a striking butterfly patterned with eyespots and white bars. We saw one today nectaring on sedum, but with chunks of a wing missing. Perhaps a bird or a praying mantis tried to grab it. It narrowly escaped predation.
A lucky day.
It's quite a common butterfly, as common as it is recognizable.
The Buckeye "is found in southern Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia and all parts of the United States, except the Northwest," according to Wikpedia. It's also found throughout Central America and Colombia.
"The Buckeye breeds on plants containing bitter iridoid glycosides, including plantains (Plantago, especially P. lanceolata), various Scrophulariaceae (especially Fluellin, Kickxia), and Lippia (Lippia or Phyla nodiflora)," says butterfly expert Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, on his website. "The spiny, black-and-white caterpillar has a bright orange head. Its behavior suggests its diet makes it virtually immune to vertebrate predation, but the pupa and adult are quite edible."
Well, this is one adult that got away.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The buck stops here.
The buckeye butterfly (Junonia coenia), that is.
Whether it's doing the fandago on the plantago, the can-can on the lantana or the waltz on the sedum, it's easy to spot.
That's because of its large eyelike circles on its wings. That's enough to scare any predator--and distinguish it from other butterflies.
On his butterfly-monitoring website, noted lepitdopterist Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis, says that the "male buckeyes are territorial perchers, usually on bare ground. Both sexes visit a great variety of flowers, from Heliotrope and Lippia to California buckeye and rabbitbrush! They often swarm over coyotebrush (Baccharis) in autumn, especially the male plants."
Lately we've seen the buckeye on Sedum (a genus in the family Crassulaceae) and Lantana (genus in the family Verbenaceae).
If you’re interested in the butterflies of the San Francisco and Sacramento areas, be sure to check out Shapiro’s Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley Regions. Illustrated by Timothy Manolis, it's published by the University of California Press.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The California Buckeye (Junonia coenia), with its bold eyespots and white bars, is an easily recognizable butterfly.
The problem: getting close enough for a photo and then patiently waiting for it to open its wings. At the first indication of danger, it flutters away.
The eyespots are supposed to scare away predators, but they certainly don't scare away a praying mantis.
Kristen Kolb, master gardener extraordinaire who helps tend the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis, recently spotted a ripped-apart Buckeye in the sedum.
We suspect a praying mantis grabbed it and feasted on the head, thorax and abdomen, leaving behind the wings.
The wings with the bold eyespots.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The eyespots--they're almost hypnotic.
And that's what makes the buckeye butterfly (Junonia coenia) so easily recognizable--the bold pattern of eyespots on the wings, bold enough to startle and scare away prey.
This buckeye (below) fluttered along the grounds of the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at the University of California, Davis, and finally dropped to the bare soil.
It appeared almost camouflaged...except for those magnificent eyespots.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's a big year for buckeyes, says noted butterfly expert Arthur Shapiro, professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis. He counts between "30 and 85 a day" in West Sacramento and North Sacramento.
The common buckeye butterfly (Junonia coenia) is not only distinctive, but quite attractive, especially when it lands on a red zinnia.
Its large eye spots on the wings (probably meant to scare off predators) draw you to its world of color and drama.
We saw this buckeye (below) in Napa, just off the Napa-St. Helena Highway. However, buckeyes are found all over the United States, except in parts of the northwest.
Maybe the northwest, too! An image of the buckeye appeared on a 24-cent U. S. postage stamp issued in 2006.
This intriguing member of the Nymphalidae family also appears on a popular poster available in the Bohart Museum of Entomology gift shop. The insect museum, at 1124 Academic Surge, UC Davis campus, also counts this butterfly as among its seven million mounted specimens.