Ready? Set? Go?

The search party is almost ready to start. If you're lucky, you'll net the prize before Art Shapiro does.

Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis, has announced his annual “Butterfly for a Beer" contest: the person who collects the first cabbage butterfly (Pieris rapae) of the year in one of three counties—Sacramento, Yolo and Solano—will receive a pitcher of beer or its equivalent. The butterfly must be collected outdoors and delivered live to the Department of Evolution and Ecology, Room 2320 of Storer Hall. (See rules)

As you may remember, Shapiro launched the contest in 1972 as part of his scientific research. Since 1972, the first flight of the cabbage white butterfly has varied from Jan. 1 to Feb. 22, averaging about Jan. 20. He predicts that the first butterfly of 2018 may be collected as soon as Jan. 5 or 6, “depending on the weather.”

He's usually the winner; he's been defeated only four times, and then by UC Davis graduate students.

And yes, he's had some humorous moments.

Some folks contact him way way way after it's all over and done (like in the spring!) with a collected specimen and ask him if they've won.

We thought about declaring ourselves the winner to the good professor after photographing dozens of them all spring and into summer and late fall and encountering hundreds more.

Meanwhile, starting Jan. 1, the cabbage white will be the most sought-after insect in the three-county area of Sacramento, Yolo and Solano.

They're not easy to find in January.  Neither are they always easy to photograph seasonally. They seem to flutter out of your viewfinder just as you're about to focus on them.  Wait, wait, come back! I'm not through yet!

Other times, they photobomb your long-awaited image, like last summer when I was zeroing in on a solo bee on a bluebeard (Caryopteris x clandonensis).

Webster defines photobombing this way: "to spoil a photograph of by unexpectedly appearing in the camera's field of view as the picture is taken, typically as a prank or practical joke."

In this case, they both wanted the same nectar. The photo amounted to a "two-fer"--two insects for the price (prize?) of one.

And then the determined cabbage white butterfly circled the hapless honey bee for another photobomb opportunity.  Aren't you done, yet?

A butterfly for a beer? Suds for a bug?

The annual “Butterfly for a Beer” contest, sponsored by Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis, gets underway on Monday, Jan. 1.

The person who collects the first cabbage white butterfly (Pieris rapae) of the year in one of three counties—Sacramento, Yolo and Solano—will receive a pitcher of beer or its equivalent. The butterfly must be collected outdoors and delivered live to the Department of Evolution and Ecology, Room 2320 of Storer Hall.

"Since 1972, the first flight of the cabbage white butterfly has varied from Jan. 1 to Feb. 22, averaging about Jan. 20," said Shapiro, who researches biological responses to climate change--and has won all the contests but four.

He predicts that the first butterfly of 2018 may be collected as soon as Jan. 5 or 6, “depending on the weather.”

The professor launched the contest in 1972 as part of his long-term studies of butterfly life cycles and climate change.  Pieris rapae  is emerging earlier and earlier as the regional climate has warmed, said Shapiro.  "The cabbage white is now emerging a week or so earlier on average than it did 30 years ago here."

Shapiro netted the first cabbage white butterfly of 2017 at 1:56 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 19 in the student gardens near the Solano Park Apartments. “This was the second year in a row that the first rapae was found in a garden rather than one of the conventional ‘warm pockets,' Shapiro noted. The 2016 winner?  UC Davis ecology graduate student Jacob Montgomery collected it in his garden in West Davis on Jan. 16.

The contest rules include:

• It must be an adult (no caterpillars or pupae) and be captured outdoors.
• It must be brought in alive to the 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 the contact information of the collector (address, phone number and/or e-mail.) The receptionist will certify that it is alive and refrigerate it. (If it's collected on a weekend or holiday, it can be kept in the refrigerator for a few days--do not freeze it.)
• Shapiro is the sole judge.

The professor, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal Entomological Society and the California Academy of Sciences,  said Pieris 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 said. “The black dots and apical spot on the upperside tend to be faint or even to disappear really early in the season.”

As a caterpillar, the insect is a pest of cole crops such as cabbage. UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM) says the cabbageworm is active throughout the year in California. "Cabbageworm larvae chew large, irregular holes in leaves, bore into heads, and drop greenish brown fecal pellets that may contaminate the marketed product. Seedlings may be damaged, but most losses are due to damage to marketed parts of the plant," according to the UC IPM website.

Shapiro, who is in the field for more than 200 days of the year, monitoring butterflies, maintains a research website on butterflies, where he records the population trends. He is the author of A Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley Regions, illustrated by Tim Manolis and published in 2007 by the University of California Press.

Shapiro's four defeats came from UC Davis graduate students:  Adam Porter won in 1983;  Sherri Graves and Rick VanBuskirk each won in the late 1990s; and Jacob Montgomery in 2016. The first three were his own graduate students.

The professor collects many of the winners in mustard patches near railroad tracks in West Sacramento, Yolo County.  Over the last eight years, five came from West Sacramento; two in Davis, Yolo County; and one in Suisun, Solano County.

The dates and locations:

• 2017: Jan. 19: Art Shapiro collected the winner on the UC Davis campus
• 2016: Jan. 16: Jacob Montgomery 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

Coincidentally, Shapiro caught the 2013 and 2009 winners on President Obama's Inauguration Day. This year he missed President Trump's Inauguration Day by a day.

It was an unexpected find, but it was right on time.

Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis, figured it was too rainy and too cold to head over to West Sacramento to look for the first cabbage white butterfly of the year, so he walked around campus Thursday.

And he found it.

Shapiro nabbed the cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae, at 1:56 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 19 in the student gardens near the Solano Park Apartments.

He again won the annual Butterfly-for-a-Beer contest, which he launched in 1972 as part of his long-term studies of butterfly life cycles and climate. 

The contest rules indicate that the first person who finds the first cabbage white butterfly of the year in the three-county area of Yolo, Solano and Sacramento receives a pitcher of beer or its equivalent.

Shapiro, who has been defeated only four times in the contest (and all by UC Davis graduate students) said this was the first find on the campus.

“Earlier today I was asked when P. rapae would come out, given the very wet January this year. I replied that when it stopped raining. we'd probably get into tule fog…and that would take us into February for any decent butterfly weather.”

Jan. 19 dawned with a “a cold, unstable air mass overhead,” Shapiro recalled, describing it as “an ideal convective day, with showers and thundershowers popping up.”

With the ground and the vegetation sopping wet, he figured this would not a “potential rapae day.”

“When I got out of class at noon it was bright and sunny, clear overhead but with cumulus building to the west over the Coast Range. It felt warm and I might have gone to West Sacramento, but decided by the time I got there it would have clouded over and perhaps even be raining. So I got lunch and then walked over to the student gardens near the Solano Park Apartments just to gather host plant for my rapae culture--yes, I'm mass-rearing the bugs for photoperiod studies, and have some 100 live ones in a refrigerator."

“It remained sunny and got quite warm—55 or 56, I'd say," Shapiro related. "The vegetation was indeed sopping wet. At 12:59 I saw—a rapae. It was sitting quietly, wings folded, on a cultivated Brassica. It had not opened its wings to body-bask, that is, warm the body by exposure to incoming solar radiation. If it had, it almost certainly would have flown and, being netless, I would have lost it. Instead it just sat there as I picked it off the plant. I always carry one glasseine envelope in my eyeglass case. Into the envelope it went. It's a winter-phenotype male and, I imagine, had just emerged this morning and not yet flown.”

“This is the second year in a row that the first rapae was found in a garden rather than one of the conventional ‘warm pockets,' Shapiro noted. “What does it all mean?”

The 2016 winner was also found in a garden when UC Davis ecology graduate student Jacob Montgomery stepped outside his home in West Davis on Jan. 16 and collected it.

Davis resident Cindy McReynolds, program manager of the Bruce Hammock lab, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, spotted some cabbage white butterfly chrysalids in her garden two weeks ago. "They were on the cabbage when I was removing the vegetation."

Colleague/collaborator Matthew Forister, McMinn professor of biology at the University of Nevada, Reno (his major professor was Shapiro), said that Shapiro's find was right on time. "You couldn't have hit closer to the trend line if you'd tried," he told him, sending him the illustration below. "This year in red," he pointed out, noting that "the slope has not changed from last year."

The cabbage white was not the only butterfly Shapiro found on Jan. 19. He also noticed a “fresh-looking female West Coast Lady, Vanessa annabella, nectaring at a crucifer in the same garden—first one of those this year too, but it's a hibernator.”

Shapiro launched the "Beer-for-a-Butterfly" contest in 1972 to draw attention to Pieris rapae and its first flight.  “Since 1972, the first flight has varied from Jan. 1 to Feb. 22, averaging about Jan. 20.” The butterfly is emerging earlier and earlier as the regional climate has warmed, said Shapiro, who researches 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."

The professor, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal Entomological Society and the California Academy of Sciences,  said the cabbage white butterfly inhabits vacant lots, fields and gardens where its host plants, weedy mustards, grow.

Shapiro teaches his students well. The other winners were his own graduate students: Adam Porter defeated him in 1983; and Sherri Graves and Rick VanBuskirk each won in the late 1990s.

Shapiro, who is in the field more than 200 days of the year, monitoring butterflies of central California, knows where to find the cabbage whites. He has collected many of his winners in mustard patches near railroad tracks in West Sacramento, Yolo County.  Over the last seven years, five of the winners came from West Sacramento; one in Davis, Yolo County; and one in Suisun, Solano County.

Coincidentally, Shapiro caught the 2013 and 2009 winners on President Obama's Inauguration Day. This year he missed President Trump's Inauguration Day by a day.

Shapiro maintains a research website on butterflies, where he records the population trends. He and artist Tim Manolis co-authored A Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley Regions, published in 2007 by the University of California Press.

What's the status of the "Beer for a Butterfly" Contest? Do we have a winner?

Well, there's good news and there's bad news.

The good news: Art Shapiro found and collected a cabbage white butterfly (Pieris rapae) on Jan. 2, the day after New Year's Day, in a mustard patch along the railroad tracks in West Sacramento, Yolo County. The bad news: it's a 2015 butterfly, not a 2016 one. In other words, it's a fall brood spillover, and the contest is still underway.

Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis, sponsors the annual contest as part of his four-decade study of climate and butterfly seasonality.

The contest works like this: The first person finding a cabbage white butterfly within the three-county area of Sacramento, Solano and Yolo--and verified by Shapiro as the first of 2016--will receive a pitcher of beer or its equivalent.

"The cabbage white is typically one of the first butterflies to emerge in late winter," says Shapiro, who launched the contest in 1972. "Since 1972, the first flight has varied from Jan. 1 to Feb. 22, averaging about Jan. 20.”

Although the first flight of the cabbage white has been as late as Feb. 22, Shapiro says it is emerging earlier and earlier as the regional climate has warmed. “There have been only two occasions in the 21st century in which it has come out this late: Jan 26, 2006 and Jan 31, 2011.”

Shapiro, who has monitored the butterfly populations of Central California since 1971, has one of the two largest butterfly databases in the world.  He maintains a research website  at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu.

The professor usually wins his own contest because he knows where to look. The  butterfly inhabits vacant lots, fields, and gardens where its host plants, weedy mustards, grow.

The cabbage white is regarded as a pest of cole crops (cabbage, kale, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, radish, horseradish, arugula, canola, mustard, etc.)  "It is generally the commonest butterfly in and around urban and suburban areas, and routinely visits gardens," he says.

As for his catch on New Year's Day, Shapiro opted to look for it in West Sacramento (south side of the railroad embankment) where he had seen two cabbage whites on Dec. 22. "There had been two rapae there on the 22nd and at that time I had forecast a potential fall brood spillover into January, as happened in 1990  and 2013 and possibly 2012--there was a long lag time after the last December 2011 record."

New Year's Day, 2016, was overcast. "By 1:20 I had about given up and there were only brief sunny intervals. Then I noticed the triangular white form of a dorsal-basking rapae among dead annual litter! Once I convinced myself that's what it was--not a piece of paper--I caught it. It never took flight and it may have been too cold to do so."

The live catch is now in his Storer Hall lab. "It's an old male, definitely frazzled, the hindwing undersides faded, unambiguously autumn-phenotype and a 2015, not a 2016 bug. So the record goes in the book--first for 2016--but the contest remains open, as in prior spillover years."

Shapiro does not expect the first cabbage white of 2016 "very soon" due to lack of vegetation and inclement weather.

"The vegetation looks terrible," he explained. "There has been very little germination of Crucifers (mustard family) since November. Most of the non-grass seedlings are yellow star thistle and milk thistle; even Conium (carrot famiy) is scarce. There are areas, mainly under standing litter, where nothing has germinated at all."

Rain is forecast for much of the week and next week. "Although it's a sort-of El Nino pattern (lasting maybe through Saturday) and there is a chance of measurable rain every day next week (except Sunday), amounts will not be huge," Shapiro predicts.

The contest rules include:

• It must be an adult (no caterpillars or pupae) and be captured outdoors.
• It must be brought in alive to the 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 your name, address, phone number and/or e-mail. The receptionist will certify that it is alive and refrigerate it. (If you collect it on a weekend or holiday, keep it in a refrigerator; do not freeze. A few days in the fridge will not harm it.)
• Shapiro is the sole judge.

Shapiro has been defeated only three times since 1972. And all by his graduate students. Adam Porter defeated him in 1983; and Sherri Graves and Rick VanBuskirk each won in the late 1990s.