The 2019 “Beer for a Butterfly” contest is over.

And the winner is…drum roll…

Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology.

Shapiro, who has sponsored the annual contest since 1972 as part of his scientific research to determine the first flight of the cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae, netted it--a male--at 1:12 p.m., Friday, Jan. 25 near the Suisun Yacht Club, Solano County.

Shapiro recorded it as the fourth earliest flight of a cabbage white butterfly in Suisun in 47 seasons.

The professor provides a pitcher of beer or its equivalent to the person who collects the first cabbage white butterfly of the year in the three-county area of Sacramento, Solano and Yolo.

He will have to drink his own beer.

“I was two days behind to do Suisun, due to various commitments on campus,” Shapiro related. “I kept Friday open because I had the overwhelming feeling yesterday that the first flight of Pieris rapae was due.”

So on the train ride to Suisun, he took a net with him. “That was silly insofar as rapae always starts later at Suisun than in, say, West Sacramento, so the odds of seeing the first one of 2019 there were minuscule,” Shapiro commented. “In fact, if I recall correctly, the first of the year was only recorded at Suisun once, Jan. 31, 2011. But I went prepared, if I saw one."

"And I did.”

Shapiro described the day as “the warmest Jan. 25 at Suisun since the Medieval Warm Period: 68F, wind E-5 mph, clear.” His notes read: “Very little in bloom: many dandelions, one Eucalyptus, three Hirschfeldia (mustard), two Raphanus (radish), many Malva (mallow) and a few Picris (sunflower family). Site still 30 percent flooded. I went to all the usual Vanessa (butterfly) places and found nothing. I searched more than 100 Malva plants for larvae and found nothing.”

“But near the Suisun Yacht Club (703 Civic Center Blvd., Suisun City) at 1:12 p.m. I saw a rapae. It didn't land and I had to take it in the air. It's a small and very heavily infuscated male.” It had just eclosed that day, he said.

Shapiro placed it in a glassine envelope and returned to Storer Hall, home of the Department of Evolution and Ecology,- where administrative staff “certified that it was alive and kicking.”

It was the only butterfly Shapiro saw in Suisun during the two-plus hours of record warmth. “I said rapae is usually later at Suisun than elsewhere near sea level. The year 2011 was the exception. It was out at Suisun on Jan. 31 but at Gates Canyon (Vacaville) not until Feb. 7; West Sacramento, Feb. 6; North Sacramento, Feb. 13; and Rancho Cordova, Feb. 23.”

However, something just as exciting awaited him when he returned to the Davis train station. When he exited the parking lot at 3:06 p.m., a “painted lady, Vanessa cardui, an immigrant from the desert, flew right in front of me in migratory mode. It was unambiguously old, worn, and ‘desertic,'not locally bred. That was more of a surprise than the rapae! In 47 years of data, I have two earlier cardui records—Jan. 18, 1987 and Jan. 23, 2014 and one tie, Jan. 25, 2009.”

“If anybody sees more, let me know,” he said. “This could be the start of something big...”

Since 1972, the first flight of the cabbage white butterfly has varied from Jan. 1 to Feb. 22, averaging about Jan. 20. In 2018, Shapiro collected the winner at 11:23 a.m. Friday, Jan. 19 in one of his frequented sites—a mustard patch by railroad tracks in West Sacramento, Yolo County.

Shapiro, who maintains a research website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu, usually wins his own contest. He has been defeated only four times, and all by UC Davis graduate students.

Shapiro has monitored butterfly population trends on a transect across central California for 47 years and records the information on his research website.  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. He visits his sites every two weeks "to record what's out" from spring to fall. 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.

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 a total of 163 species of butterflies in his transect.

No winner yet.

The annual “Beer for a Butterfly" or "Suds for a Bug" contest has not produced a winner.

But somewhere out there, is a cabbage white butterfly taking its first flight.

As you may remember,  Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis,sponsors the annual contest and the first person in the three-county area of Sacramento, Yolo and Solano who collects the first live cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae, of the new year--outdoors--wins a pitcher of beer or its equivalent.

The good professor was out looking again today. "It's another another gorgeous day," he reported to fellow scientists and others in an email this afternoon. "It FEELS like a 'rapae day,' but my schedule today is so convoluted (teaching, interviewing a job candidate, a meeting and two seminars) that I only had time to do a quick loop of community gardens...And I had just enough time to walk around Old East Davis for half an hour looking for Vanessas. I saw...nothing. But maybe somebody got a rapae today?".

Shapiro, who maintains a research website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu, launched the contest in 1972 as part of his scientific research to record the first flight of the butterfly in the three-county area. It's a contest he usually wins. He has been defeated only four times, and all by UC Davis graduate students.

Since 1972, the first flight has varied from Jan. 1 to Feb. 22, averaging about Jan. 20.

In 2018, he collected the winner at 11:23 a.m. Friday, Jan. 19 in one of his frequented sites—a mustard patch by railroad tracks in West Sacramento, Yolo County.

The butterfly inhabits vacant lots, fields and gardens where its host plants, weedy mustards, grow.

The contest rules include:

• It must be an adult (no caterpillars or pupae) and be captured outdoors.
• It must be delivered 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 says.)
• Shapiro is the sole judge.

The list of winners, dates and locations since 2010:

• 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

Shapiro has monitored butterfly population trends on a transect across central California for 46 years 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. Shapiro visits his sites every two weeks "to record what's out" from spring to fall. 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.

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 a total of 163 species of butterflies in his transect.

If you've been looking for that elusive first-of-the-year cabbage white butterfly in the three-county area of Sacramento, Yolo and Solano, you're in luck.

Art Shapiro hasn't found it yet, and neither has anyone else.

So you can keep looking.

If you collect it, and it's verified as the first one of the year, you'll win a pitcher of beer or its equivalent. Suds for a bug.

Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, launched the contest, "A Beer for a Butterfly" in 1972 to determine the first flight of Pieris rapae. It's all part of his ongoing scientific research. Since 1972, the first flight has varied from Jan. 1 to Feb. 22, averaging about Jan. 20.

Shapiro, who has monitored butterfly populations in Central California for more than four decades and maintains a website where he posts his research, usually wins his own contest because he knows where to look. He's been defeated only four times, and all by UC Davis graduate students.

The 2018 winner? Shapiro collected that one on Friday, Jan. 19 in a mustard patch near railroad tracks in West Sacramento, Yolo County, one of his frequented sites. 

But he doesn't expect to find the winner there this year.

"The numbers were very low in West Sacramento last fall and there was no germination, so the only host plants available were Lepidium latifolium and a very few Hirschfeldia," he says. "I'm expecting a VERY poor spring brood there and elsewhere."

The contest rules include:

• It must be an adult (no caterpillars or pupae) and be captured outdoors.
• It must be delivered 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 says.)
• Shapiro is the sole judge.

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 said. “The black dots and apical spot on the upperside tend to be faint or even to disappear really early in the season.”

Any predictions for when we can say "We have a winner!"

"No hope before mid-month," Shapiro says. "I'm forecasting Jan. 27."

Yes, it's true.

You can exchange suds for a bug.

That would be a cabbage white butterfly for a pitcher of beer or its equivalent.

And it's all in the interest of science.

Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis, is sponsoring his annual “Beer for a Butterfly Contest,” starting Jan. 1.

The first person in the three-county area of Sacramento, Yolo and Solano who collects the first cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae, of the new year--outdoors--and drops it off live  in the Department of Evolution and Ecology office--wins a pitcher of beer or its equivalent.

Shapiro, who maintains a research website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu, launched the contest in 1972 as part of his scientific research to record the first flight of the butterfly in the three-county area. It's a contest he usually wins. He has been defeated only four times, and all by UC Davis graduate students.

Since 1972, the first flight has varied from Jan. 1 to Feb. 22, averaging about Jan. 20.

In 2018, he collected the winner at 11:23 a.m. Friday, Jan. 19 in one of his frequented sites—a mustard patch by railroad tracks in West Sacramento, Yolo County.

“I spotted the male butterfly dorsal basking (sunbathing) on low vegetation shortly after the first cumulous formed at 11 a.m.,” the professor remembers. “As I approached to collect it, a small cumulus occluded the sun and it closed its wings over its back--allowing me to just pick it up without using my net at all, and drop it into a glassine envelope. It turned out that that was the ONLY cloud that crossed the sun in the next two and a half hours! It got up to about 60 degrees and was a gorgeous day with a trace of a west wind.”

He described the butterfly as quite yellow instead of white. “Cold weather promotes sepiapterin formation, so early ones are often quite yellow.” 

This is the eighth year since 2010 that the winning butterfly has been collected in Yolo County. In 2017, Shapiro found the winner on the UC Davis campus; in 2016, graduate student Jacob Montgomery netted the winner outside his home in west Davis, and Shapiro collected all five winners from 2012 to 2015 in West Sacramento.  He found the 2011 winner in Suisun, Solano County.

Shapiro's graduate student, Adam Porter, defeated him in 1983.  Two other graduate students, Sherri Graves and Rick VanBuskirk, each won in the late 1990s.

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 said. “The black dots and apical spot on the upperside tend to be faint or even to disappear really early in the season.”

In its caterpillar stage, Pieris rapae is a pest of cole crops and is known as "imported cabbageworm." 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's website.) "Seedlings may be damaged, but most losses are due to damage to marketed parts of the plant."

Ready to join the hunt for the first-of-the-year cabbage white butterfly? And try to defeat the good professor?

The contest rules include:

• It must be an adult (no caterpillars or pupae) and be captured outdoors.
• It must be delivered 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 says.)
• Shapiro is the sole judge.

The list of winners, dates and locations since 2010:

• 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, Yolo County
• 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

Shapiro has monitored butterfly population trends on a transect across central California for 46 years 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. Shapiro visits his sites every two weeks "to record what's out" from spring to fall. 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.

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 a total of 163 species of butterflies in his transect.