- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
He participates in his annual "Beer for a Butterfly" contest that he's sponsored since 1972 as part of his scientific research to determine the butterfly's first flight of the year in the three-county area of Sacramento, Yolo and Solano. The rules: net the first butterfly and win a pitcher of beer or its equivalent. Suds for a bug.
Today, Feb. 8, proved to be a "bingo" day.
"I knew when I left the house at 10:10 this morning that today would be rapae day," he announced in an email with the subject line, Bingo!
"It was."
He spotted his first rapae of the year, a female, at 11:22 a.m. in West Sacramento, Yolo County. At 11:38, he saw a male. "Both were typical late winter phenotypes, quite different from what was flying in December," he noted. "My last in West Sac was Christmas Eve. So the rapae-less hiatus was 45 days, i.e. just over 6 weeks."
It was 64 degrees, clear, no wind.
"I did not get a specimen," Shapiro related. "Both of them were flying up near the railroad track at the top of the railroad embankment, where the ground is strewn with coarse gravel. That makes for a warm layer of air in full sun, but terrible footing. I am no longer so nimble or so self-confident as I used to be, and I never got a clean shot at either bug even though I got within about 6 feet of both."
"I could have stayed in that area and probably eventually would have caught one or both of them," Shapiro added. "I had to weigh that against covering the rest of the upland half of my site and possibly finding something else out. Remember that the butterfly-friendly window of time each day is still very short. I opted to keep moving, ultimately observing two atalanta (Vanessa atalanta, the red admiral) but nothing else. Malvella (mallow family) has not broken ground yet. Plenty of Erodium (family Geraniaceae) in bloom now, though.
P. rapae inhabits vacant lots, fields and gardens where its host plants, weedy mustards, grow. In its caterpillar stage, it is a pest commonly called "cabbageworm" that chews on cole crops.
Shapiro, who is in the field 200 days of the year, has been defeated only four times and those were by 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.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
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)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
As you know, Shapiro sponsors the annual Cabbage White Butterfly Contest--the first person who collects the first cabbage white of the year from the three-county area of Sacramento, Solano and Yolo wins a pitcher of beer. It's a research project he's been working on since 1972 to determine the first flight of Pieris rapae. He's usually the winner because he knows where to look.
His email began suspenseful. Did he find it? Did he find it?
"The fog lifted to low stratus overcast, which very slowly broke up into stratocumulus, with a very light north wind aloft--it was calm at the surface," he wrote. "I had thought today might be a day to look for the first rapae, but by 11.30 a.m, the sun was still not visible and it was 53F in Davis. So I went to lunch."
"While I ate the sun broke through. When I went outside at 12.05 it was up to 57F and some blue sky was showing. I made a snap decision to go to West Sacramento even though there was no time to go get a net. I told myself that what I really needed was the first-flight date. Catching the bug was just for the contest. I would trust my own sight record! So off I went. I was in West Sacramento from 1 to 3 at the warmest part of the day. I had about 70% sunshine. The high was 63F but it was so humid that it actually felt warmer with the sun out. It was still dead calm. The vegetation is progressing now."
His email STILL kept us in suspense. Did he find it? Did he find it?
"The number of blooming Raphanus has doubled; there are thousands of Raphanus and Brassica nigra plants in vegetative condition; four Melilotus alba have come into bloom. One Avena is blooming--just one. The Conium rosettes are immense--as big as last year--and as is its allelopathic wont, its areal coverage has expanded greatly. I am very attentive to dorsal-basking rapae in the vegetation and looked constantly for them; no dice."
Did he find it? Did he find it?
"But it felt so like a rapae day... And then at 1.21 p.m. a butterfly flew by and nectared at Raphanus. It was a fresh (of course!) female Pyrgus communis--as it turned out, the only Lep (Lepidoptera) of the day. OK, now get this: in the entire project, i.e. since 1972, communis has never been recorded earlier than rapae in the Valley. But that's just for starters. Communis has never been recorded in January before, either. The earliest is ii.1.14, which happens to have been in West Sac; so today beat it by 10 days. Communis has been recorded in February at West Sacramento only 8 times--the usual first-flight date is in March!-and those were ii.16.01,ii.23.07,ii.17.12,ii.1.14,ii.12.15,ii.22.16 and ii.22.17. That is, of the 8 February records, 6 were during or adjacent to the drought. 2018 and 19 returned to the classic March start. Pyrgus scriptura almost always starts first, occasionally on the same day.
Did he find it? Did he find it?
"Not this year! Rapae still awaits. But this communis craziness is better than a beer! What next?"
What's next is the contest is still open. Beer for a butterfly. Suds for a bug. (For the rules, see the Bug Squad blog)
- Author: 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!
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
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."
