No suds for a bug in 2021. 

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic precautions, butterfly guru Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, won't be hosting his annual Beer-for-a-Butterfly Contest, which he launched in 1972 as part of his scientific research to determine the first flight of the cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae.

Or, as he says, the contest is in "diapause."

The traditional rules: if you collect the first live cabbage white butterfly of the year in the three-county area of Sacramento, Solano and Yolo, and deliver it to 2320 Storer Hall, UC Davis campus, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday (and detail the exact time, date and location of your capture), and it's judged the winner, you win a pitcher of beer or its equivalent. 

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

Who won in 2020? Technically, there was no winner, as Shapiro didn't collect the one he spotted in Winters at 11:16 a.m. on Jan. 30, 2020 at the Putah Creek Nature Park.  "It flew back and forth across Putah Creek and then departed the area, flying out of reach above the trees," he noted. He waited around for 90 minutes to see if it would return. It did not.

No one else came forth with a cabbage white so the date of Jan. 30 stands as the first of 2020.

The point of the contest "is to get the earliest possible flight date for statistical purposes," the professor related. "The rules require that the animal be captured and brought in alive to be verified. That way no one can falsely claim to have seen one, or misidentify something else as a cabbage white."

Shapiro, who maintains a research website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu, has been defeated only four times, and all by UC Davis graduate students: Jacob Montgomery in 2016; Adam Porter in 1983; and Sherri Graves and Rick VanBuskirk each defeated him in the late 1990s.

In 2019. Shapiro collected the first cabbage white butterfly near the Suisun Yacht Club, Suisun City, Solano County, at 1:12 p.m., Friday, Jan. 25. "It was the earliest recorded in Suisun City in 47 seasons."

In recent years, most winners collected the butterflies in Yolo County:

• 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

The butterfly inhabits vacant lots, fields and gardens where its host plants, weedymustards, grow. In its larval stage, it's known as the importedcabbageworm, and is a major pest of cole crops, including cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, collards, kale, and kohlrabi.  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 (UC IPM) Pest Management Guidelines. "Seedlings may be damaged, but most losses are due to damage to marketed parts of the plant."

"The adult cabbage butterfly is white with one to four black spots on the wings; they are often seen fluttering around the fields," UC IPM says. "The whitish, rocket-shaped eggs are laid singly on the undersides of leaves. The cabbageworm is active throughout the year in California."

Bottom line: COVID canceled the 2021 scientific contest for Pieris rapae ("on your mark, get set, don't go!) but it can't cancel an adult's preference for beer.  A beer for no butterfly?

And by the way, Professor Shapiro says "I will gladly accept records. I will neither sample nor go out for a beer until I'm vaccinated." (Email him at amshapiro@ucdavis.edu)

Art Shapiro holds one of the previous winners. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

No winner this year.

Shapiro, a UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, saw one in Winters, Yolo County, but he couldn't collect it. No bug. No suds. No winner.

So, Shapiro, who has sponsored the annual contest since 1972 to determine the bug's first flight of the year in the three-county area of Sacramento, Solano and Yolo, isn't claiming victory because he couldn't net it.  No specimen. No winner. No beer.

Shapiro spotted the cabbage white in Winters at 11:16 a.m. on Jan. 30 at the Putah Creek Nature Park, but it proved elusive.  "It flew back and forth across Putah Creek and then departed the area, flying out of reach above the trees," he noted. He waited around for 90 minutes to see if it would return. It did not.

The point of the contest, the professor says, "is to get the earliest possible flight date for statistical purposes. The rules require that the animal be captured and brought in alive to be verified. That way no one can falsely claim to have seen one, or misidentify something else as a cabbage white."

Shapiro, known for his expertise on butterflies (he maintains a research website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/, quipped that he has “100% confidence” in his own ability to sight-identify the species. This is the first time in the 40-year-plus history of the contest that he saw the first one but could not catch it.

"The record stands," he says, "but in fairness to everybody else, I can't declare myself the winner without the specimen. Since the first date is known, there is no scientific need for further records."

But to be fair to potential competitors, Shapiro decided that if anyone brought a cabbage white into Storer Hall before 5 p.m., Monday, Feb. 3, that person would be declared the winner and get the beer.

But no one did. So at 6 p.m., Monday, Shapiro declared the contest closed, with no winner.

The Jan. 30 date is the latest since 2011 and the second-latest since 2005, his records show.

Shapiro warns that this does not mean global warming is a hoax!

And yes, he intends to enjoy a beer with a friend sometime later this week. Suds for a bug, winner or not.

Professor Art Shapiro has won the Beer for a Butterfly Contest every year since 1972 except for four. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

If you collect the first cabbage white butterfly of the year in the three-county area of Sacramento, Solano and Yolo, you'll win a pitcher of beer or its equivalent, compliments of Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology.

Shapiro is sponsoring his 48th annual Beer-for-a-Butterfly Contest and it's all in the name of research--to determine the first flight of the cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae. Since 1972, when he launched the contest, the first flight has varied from Jan. 1 to Feb. 22, averaging about Jan. 20.

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.”

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.

Shapiro, who maintains a research website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu, usually wins his own contest and did so again in 2019. He collected the winner near the Suisun Yacht Club, Suisun City, Solano County, at 1:12 p.m., Friday, Jan. 25. 

Shapiro has been defeated only four times, and all by UC Davis graduate students: Jacob Montgomery in 2016; Adam Porter in 1983; and Sherri Graves and Rick VanBuskirk each defeated him in the late 1990s.

The list of winners, dates and locations since 2010:

• 2019: Jan. 25: Art Shapiro collected the winner near the Suisun Yacht Club,Solano County
• 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

The 2019 winner was the earliest recorded in Suisun City in 47 seasons, said Shapiro. That day he noticed dandelions, mustard, radish and mallow in bloom and a few Picris (sunflower family) in the area. "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.

The UC Davis professor has monitored butterfly population trends on a transect across central California since 1972 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, weather permitting. He has studied more than 160 species of butterflies in his transect. 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 and illustrator Timothy D. 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. Shapiro is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal Entomological Society, and the California Academy of Sciences.

Meanwhile, if you want to learn more about this butterfly, see the data on the UC Integrated Pest Management Program website. In its larval stage (cabbageworm), it's a pest.

And if you want a free pitcher of beer (or its equivalent), don't leave home without your net!

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.