Lady

[Earle Baldwin]

Got a good look but brief and w/o bins at a Lady on a grassy hilltop in Baldwinville. Which might be out now?

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[Alex Grkovich]

For sure this would be an American Painted Lady. Painted Lady (actually not that closely related) tends to build up populations as the season progresses, while American Painted Lady usually appears quite early and can be common even in the spring...The two should also not be too difficult to recognize even in flight, as the relative flight characteristics (and habits while landed) are actually quite different...

Earle Baldwin <earleb...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Wilson]

A neighbor of mine just released a swarm of Painted Ladies that she
and her children raised from one of those kits from North or South
Carolina. Nothing is for sure any more! I've been seeing them
flitting around since. You have to wonder how this affects the whole
population of Painted Ladies. Maybe they'll be so confused they'll
head south....

[Earle Baldwin]

thanks Alex,,, please elaborate if you would

[Alex Grkovich]

Earle et all,

 

Spend some time comparatively watching these bugs as they patrol and perch around the habitat (and see if you agree with me on this)...The Painted Lady LOOKS redder in flight than does the American Lady, and I think also the more pointed (and/or elongated) FW (apical area) can be noticed in flight...The Painted Lady has a more direct fast flight, and lands very quickly and suddenly when it has decided to land on a flower; and when perched on a flower, tends to quickly close its wings and usually perches with the wings closed...Again, the silhouette of the wings when closed - including the pointed or extended FW - of the Painted Lady is distinctive.

 

The American (Painted) Lady has, to me, a more nervous, not so direct or "straight ahead", not as quick,  and (I think) a generally closer to the ground flight characteristic. It will also patrol and "loop" around the habitat seeking nectar. When perched on a flower, it tends to hold its wings open at about a 60 degree angle, and will often exercise them, flapping them while perched.

Anybody else got any observations here???

 

Similarly, the Tawny and Hackberry Emperors (and in the southwest, the Empress Leilia, all) can be rather easily differentiated in flight... 

Alex

[Earle Baldwin]

Thanks Alex,,, I find behavior useable in many bugs. To quote an old friend (I am friend,,, she is old) loopy is the flight of one small lep.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Gail Trenholm <gail...@sympatico.ca>
Date: Mon, May 12, 2008 at 5:38 PM
Subject: Re: [MassLep] Re: Lady
To: earleb...@gmail.com

Hi Earle,

I agree...explain yourself Alex.

Gail

[Alex Grkovich]

You're welcome, Earle...

 

Alex

Earle Baldwin <earleb...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Paul Cherubini]

nlwilson wrote:

> A neighbor of mine just released a swarm of Painted Ladies that she
> and her children raised from one of those kits from North or South
> Carolina.

Those Painted Lady rearing kits are pretty expensive:
According to the Carolina Biological Supply
company website: http://tinyurl.com/4bskho
a kit containing 3 rearing chambers with 2 larvae each
(6 larvae total) costs $17.25 ($2.87 per caterpillar)

And a larger kit with 12 rearing chambers (24 larvae
total) costs $62.25 ($2.59 per caterpillar).

Thus with $100.00 one could purchase only 38 Painted Lady
caterpillars. It follows that in order for your neighbor to have
released a "swarm" of Painted Ladies involving hundreds
of butterfies, she would have had to purchase many
hundreds of dollars worth of Painted Lady caterpillars.

Paul Cherubini

[Wilson]

Hi Paul,

Glad you researched that Painted Lady release! My neighbor called it
a swarm so I concluded it was many. I know they discussed having
recently released a number of them with one more to go that had
detached and was lying on the floor of one of the cages. And I
unmistakably saw more than one flying in my yard. It may have been 38
caterpillars and she considered it a swarm. They home school and I
know they go way out of their way to keep their children interested.

I think the point is the same. Whether it's 38 butterflies or
two...what is the effect? I heard from an entomologist who said these
Monarch Butterfly releases at weddings etc may be causing viruses to
spread. It may be anyone's guess at this point what other effects it
may be having...some odd sightings perhaps?

Nan

[boet...@psis.umass.edu]

Hi Paul and all,

True the kits are expensive, but I have met a couple people now that are
buying the Painted Lady diets (available from BioServe www.insectrearing.com)
for only $6.50 a liter- and a liter goes a long way- and basically doing the
rest themselves. These guys have multiple generations a year, so one mated
female will yield a lot of eggs. So I think this is being done much cheaper and
more often than you might think.

I was trying to look at wild silk moth populations until I realized that I
have met at least 30 people in New England that raise silk moths as a hobby,
from one species for one year to many species every year. And it is amazing how
many people release the extras...either as eggs, larvae or adults. One mated
pair can yield 200 eggs so you only need one mating to be overloaded in eggs.

My boss called me one night when he saw about 20 polyphemus moths at a light
near his house in Amherst. We had wanted some local critters (to have some from
a local gene pool) so we caught a few and reared them. Later that Sept I was at
a dinner and I just happened to overhear someone a few tables over, talking
about polyphemus moths so I had to listen. I went over and introduced myself and
he told me that he had caught a female in the Adirondacks and reared out a bunch
of her eggs. He said he released 30 in Amherst, and when I asked him where and
when it turned out it was the same night two doors down from where we found
them. So we had seen 2/3rds of his release, without really trying. So that was a
lesson for me on gene pools. There are so many people raising these that it
would be hard to tell what is really a local population any more.

And numbers of people raising painted ladies or monarchs in MA alone??? I bet
it numbers in the many hundreds every year.

Just a thought.

Jeff Boettner
Plant, Soil and Insect Sciences
Umass-Amherst
Amherst, MA 01003

boet...@psis.umass.edu