"The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough."--Rabindranath Tagore

 When we think of orange and autumn, we think of the marriage of the Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae), and the Mexican sunflower (Tithonia).

The silver-spangled Gulf Fritillary, a showy orange butterfly, looks like two different species. When it spreads its wings, it's orange. The underwings: silver.

"Dazzling," agrees butterfly guru Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology.

"This dazzling bit of the New World Tropics was introduced into southern California in the 19th Century --we don't know how-- and was first recorded in the Bay Area before 1908, though it seems to have become established there only in the 1950s," he says on his website.

"It can be quite common in the East and South Bay --particularly in Berkeley--and has been found breeding spontaneously as far inland as Fairfield where, however, it is not established. There are scattered records in the Central Valley and even up to Folsom, perhaps resulting from people breeding the species for amusement or to release at social occasions."

The Gulf Frit bred in Sacramento in abundance on Passiflora in the early 1960s, Shapiro relates. "It seems to have died out by the early 1970s, however. Intolerant of hard freezes, it still managed to survive the record cold snap of 1990 that largely exterminated the Buckeye regionally!"

Its host plant: Passiflora or passionflower vine. Plant it and they will come (at least in this area)!

"Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."--Nathaniel Hawthorne

Gulf Fritillary caterpillars can skeletonize a passionflower vine quite rapidly. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

That's what we've been told for years. We hear that butterflies don't like the red ones, and that they may, in fact, be poisonous to them.

We've grown both in our pollinator garden in Vacaville, Calif.  Both flourished. However, we removed the red passionflower vine,  P. jamesonii, because the Gulf Frits avoided it.  They lay their eggs--and quite profusely, too--on our lavender passionflower (Passiflora incarnata), also called "Maypop." (In fact, every year they skeletonize them. Hungry, hungry caterpillars!)

Which brings us to the question from a reader: "I have the Maypop and Purple Passionvine, which is working well as a host plant for the Gulf Frit. I recently bought a Red Passionvine and then read it is poisonous to the Gulf Frit. Is it true?"

We asked butterfly guru Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, who has monitored butterfly populations in Central California for more than four decades and publishes his research and observations on his website.

"They don't use some of the red-flowered species," Shapiro says. "I don't know if they're actually poisonous. I've never found the bug on P. jamesonii around Ohlone Park in Berkeley, where there's tons of it. There's a large plant at the northwest corner of 3rd and B in Davis that may be this species, and they don't use it, either."

P. jamesoni, also known as "Coral Seas," (one of some 500 varieties in the world, see Wikipedia for the full list) is indeed striking with its brilliant red flowers.

As an aside, P. jamesoni is listed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. That would be the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which describes itself "an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resource an international organization."

Justification for Being on the Red List:

"Passiflora jamesonii is endemic to the Ecuadorean Andes, where it is known from five subpopulations on both sides of the range. Only one subpopulation is inside Ecuador's protected areas network. The species seems to prefer untouched areas, so fires are a severe threat," according to the IUCN Red List.

Judge: "Will the defendant please rise?"

The defendant, a praying mantis--a male Stragmomantis limbata--rises solemnly, stretching his spiked forelegs.

Judge: "Do you have anything to say for yourself about how this dismembered Gulf Fritillary butterfly, Agraulis vanillae,  happened to be in the very same passionflower vine that you were occupying--at the very same time, 4 p.m., Sept. 12, 2018 in Vacaville, Calif.? Do you have anything to say for yourself, Mr. Mantis?"

Defendant: "Yes, sir! I do, sir.  I was hungry. But I ate only the abdomen, thorax and head. I left the pretty parts, the wings, behind, for everyone to enjoy."

Mystery solved. Everybody eats in the pollinator garden!

The male Stagmomomantis limbata, as identified by mantis expert and Bohart Museum of Entomology associate Lohit Garikipati, a UC Davis entomology major who rears mantids,  proved difficult to see amid the green passionflower vine (Passiflora). A perfect camouflage!

It's a male Stagmomomantis limbata and not a male Mantis religiosa? "Note the bicolored pronotum (first thoracic segment) that is an easy distinguishing tool!" Garikipata said. "Mantis religiosa also have a band around the head!"

S. limbata, commonly called a "bordered mantis," is native to North America. It is green or beige and can reach three inches in length.

"Males are slender, long-winged, and variable in color, but most often green and brown with the sides of the folded tegmina green and top brownish (may be solid gray, brown, green, or any combination of these)," according to Wikipedia. "Abdomen without prominent dark spots on top. The wings are transparent, usually with cloudy brownish spots on outer half."

Garikipata described it as a "super cool find, adult males are superb fliers!"

This one didn't fly. At least then.

Neither did his prey, the hapless Gulf Fritillary.

(Editor's Note: The Bohart Museum of Entomology, directed by Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology at UC Davis, will host an open house, "Crafty Insects," from 1 to 4 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 22 in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus. The public event--free and family friendly--will focus on "crafty" or "sneaky" insects.  Visitors are invited to bring insect crafts that they have made. They will be displayed next to "crafty" or "sneaky" insects.)

You're heard these idioms:

• The early bird gets the worm
• First come, first served.
• Johnny-on-the-spot.
• The second mouse gets the cheese.

But have you ever seen a Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) eclose and then see her...well...engaged?

Such was the case on Labor Day, Sept. 3 in our little pollinator garden in Vacaville, Calif.

The female (we'll call her "Bride-to-Be") finishes eclosing and is hanging from her empty chrysalis, just drying her wings on the passionflower vine (aptly named) and getting acquainted with her new life stage and leafy surroundings.

Then, whoosh. A suitor (we'll call him "Groom-to-Be") appears out of nowhere. Well, from somewhere, but somewhere quite threatening. He looks tired and worn out, too fragile to fly. (As a colleague said: "He's accumulated a lot of frequent flier miles.") His ragged wings indicate a recent encounter with one or more predators, maybe a bird or a praying mantis.  But he lucked out in the Predator-Prey tally: the final score, Butterfly, 1: Predator 0.

He lucks out again. He's the first to arrive at the altar. Our camera catches the action.

 "In some Heliconius, the males locate female pupae and may even copulate with the female before she ecloses!" commented butterfly guru Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology. "They are related."

Labor Day, 2018.