- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
An Anise Swallowtail, Papilio zelicaon, settles on a red zinnia in a Vacaville pollinator garden and begins sipping the nectar.
A honey bee buzzes by.
Was she just passing through or did she want the same nectar?
The bee brushes the butterfly's wings. Okay! I'm leaving!
Score: Bee, 1; butterfly 0.
Anise Swallowtails, according to UC Davis emeritus professor Art Shapiro, "have several generations (late February or March-October) and breed very largely on Sweet Fennel (Anise), Foeniculum vulgare, and (in the first half of the season) Poison Hemlock, Conium maculatum. Both of these are naturalized European weeds."
Shapiro, who retired this summer from the Department of Evolution and Ecology, has been monitoring the butterfly populations of Central California since 1972. He maintains a research site, Art's Butterfly World.
The images below were captured with a Nikon D500 camera and a 200mm macro lens. Shutter speed: 1/2000 of a second, f-stop, 4; and ISO, 800.
/span>- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Some people are born good-looking. Some have the gift of gab. And some are lucky enough to be born smarter than the rest of us. Whether we like it or not, Mother Nature does not dole these characteristics out evenly.--Simon Sinek
How true.
That applies to butterflies, too. Nobody said Mother Nature is perfect.
If you're rearing butterflies, such as Gulf Fritillaries (Agraulis vanillae), expect to see some defects, deformities and death. That chrysalis you've been watching? A butterfly may never eclose. In the cycle of life, the transformation from egg to larva to pupa to adult may never occur.
Nobody said Mother Nature is perfect.
The chrysalis is a withered grayish-brown, perfectly camouflaged on the butterfly's host plant, the passionflower vine (Passiflora). Sometimes you see a burst of reddish-orange wings and sliver spangled underwings, the remains of a butterfly that struggled to eclose.
Then you wait for one that will, one that will eclose.
The next one will take your breath away. Mother Nature is like that.