A beer for a butterfly? Suds for a bug? 

It's almost time for the Art Shapiro's annual "Beer-for-a-Butterfly" contest that he's sponsored since 1972. The person who finds the first-of-the-year cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae, in the three-county area of Yolo, Sacramento and Solano, wins a beer--or its equivalent.

And bragging rights!

Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus, Department of Evolution and Ecology, is retired, but not from his research and not from sponsoring the annual “Beer-for-a-Butterfly” contest.

Beginning Jan. 1, 2024, Shapiro will be collaborating with the Bohart Museum of Entomology, the "dropping off point," for the entries. Bohart curator and collections manager Brennen Dyer will be accepting the entries. 

Shapiro launched the contest a half a century ago as part of his scientific research to determine the first flight of the year in the three-county area. His research involves long-term studies of butterfly life cycles and climate change.

Shapiro says P. rapae is emerging earlier and earlier as the regional climate has warmed. "Since 1972, the first flight of the cabbage white butterfly has varied from Jan. 1 to Feb. 22, averaging about Jan. 20."

Shapiro, who maintains a research website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/, says the point of the contest "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."

The contest rules include:

• It must be an adult (no caterpillars or pupae) and be captured outdoors.
• It must be brought in alive to the Bohart Museum of Entomology, located in Room 1124, Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus,  during work hours, from 8 a.m. to noon, and from 1 to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. It must include full data (exact time, date and location of the capture) and the contact information of the collector (address, phone number and/or e-mail.) Brennen Dyer will certify that it is alive and refrigerate it. (If it's collected on a weekend or holiday, it can be kept in the refrigerator for a few days--do not freeze it, Shapiro says.)
• Shapiro is the sole judge.

First of 2023. Shapiro spotted the first butterfly of the year in 2023 at 11:22 a.m., in West Sacramento, Yolo County. He did not collect the butterfly but recorded it as the first of the year. No one came forth with any other. 

Feb 8 was "the 11th latest first rapae day since 1972,” he said, detailing the 10 later finds: Feb. 26, 1972 (“which is probably too late, since I hadn't yet learned where to look for them first!”); Feb. 22, 1992 (“I fully believe that one”); Feb. 18, 1978 and 1986; Feb. 17, 1979; Feb. 16, 1975; Feb. 14, 1981; Feb. 13, 1983 and 1985; and Feb. 10, 1980. “Note that most of these are from the '80s,” he said. “There has indeed been a trend to earlier emergence, though this year is an outlier!”

Shapiro says P. rapae 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.” 

Shapiro, who monitors butterfly populations in the field for more than 200 days of the year,  participates in his own contest. He 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.

Shapiro nets many of the winners in mustard patches near railroad tracks in West Sacramento, Yolo County

Recent Beer-for-a-Butterfly Contest statistics:

• 2023: Art Shapiro recorded the first butterfly of the year at 11:22 a.m., Feb 8 in West Sacramento County, Yolo County. He did not collect the specimen and no one can forth with a winner. 
• 2022: No official contest due to the COVID pandemic, but Shapiro recorded his first-of-the-year P. rapae at 1:25 p.m. on Jan. 19 in West Sacramento, Yolo County
• 2021:  No official contest due to the COVID pandemic, but Shapiro collected his first-of-the-year at 1:55 p.m. Jan. 16 on the UC Davis campus, Yolo County
• 2020: Technically, no winner, as Shapiro did not collect the one he spotted in Winters, Yolo County at 11:16 a.m. on Jan. 30 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.
• 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."
• 2018: Art Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
• 2017: Jan. 19: Art Shapiro collected the winner on the UC Davis campus
• 2016: Jan. 16: Jacob Montgomery 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
• 2010: Jan. 27:  Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento

A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal Entomological Society and the California Academy of Sciences,   Shapiro is the author of A Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley Regions, illustrated by Tim Manolis and published in 2007 by the University of California Press.

Collaborating with Shapiro on butterfly research projects is Foundation Professor Matthew Forister, the Trevor J. McMinn Endowed Research Professor in Biology, University of Nevada. Forister received his doctorate from UC Davis, studying with Shapiro, his major professor.

Pest of Cole Crops. As a caterpillar, the insect is a pest of cole crops such as cabbage. UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM) says the cabbageworm is active throughout the year in California. "Cabbageworm larvae chew large, irregular holes in leaves, bore into heads, and drop greenish brown fecal pellets that may contaminate the marketed product. Seedlings may be damaged, but most losses are due to damage to marketed parts of the plant," according to the UC IPM website.

The Bohart Museum of Entomology is directed by UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey. Entomologist Jeff Smith curates the Lepidoptera collection, a global collection of some 500,000 moths and butterflies.

There may not be a UC Davis "Beer-for-a-Butterfly Contest" or "Suds for a Bug" in 2022.

The COVID-19 pandemic precautions and/or lockdown may interfere with it.

"As of now, no," says contest sponsor Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, who launched the competition in 1972.

Remember the contest? 

For scientific purposes, the UC Davis professor seeks to determine the cabbage white butterfly's first flight of the year in the three-county area of Sacramento, Solano and Yolo.

The traditional rules: Catch a live cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae, in the wild in one of those three counties, deliver it live to his 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 if it's the first of the year, you win a pitcher of beer or its equivalent. 

Shapiro, who maintains a research website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu, says that since 1972, 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 says. “The black dots and apical spot on the upperside tend to be faint or even to disappear really early in the season.”

Shapiro or his graduate students have often won the contest.

Shapiro has monitored butterfly population trends on a transect across central California since 1972 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. 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 more than 160 species of butterflies in his transect. 

So suds for a bug in 2022? Well, maybe you can welcome in the New Year with suds...without a bug...

"Today dawned foggy," began Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, in a Jan. 22nd group email.

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)

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.