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And the Winner of the Beer-for-a-Butterfly Contest...
Don't go looking for the first-flight cabbage white butterfly of the year in Yolo, Solano and Sacramento counties.
The beer-for-a-butterfly contest is over.
We have a winner!...drum roll...
Professor Arthur Shapiro!
Shapiro, a distinguished professor in the UC Davis Department of Evolution and Ecology, again won his own three-county area contest by netting the first-flight cabbage white butterfly (Pieris rapae) of the year at 12:20 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 14 in West Sacramento, Yolo County.
Shapiro netted a male on the south slope of the railroad tracks where “I’ve caught at least half of the first-flight cabbage whites.” The temperature was 62 degrees, but soon rose to 70 degrees.
“I caught it in mid-air with a ballet leap!” Shapiro said, smiling.
“There was a little radish but hardly any vegetation there. It was about 40 or 50 feet from where I got the one last year, about one-fourth mile west of Harbor Boulevard. It was flying eastward along the edge of the service road.”
The annual contest, which Shapiro launched in 1972, seeks the first-flight cabbage white butterfly of the year in the three-county area of Sacramento, Yolo and Solano. He has won every year except for the three years claimed the championship title.
The contest is all part of Shapiro’s 43-year study of climate and butterfly seasonality. “It is typically one of the first butterflies to emerge in late winter. Since 1972, the first flight has varied from Jan. 1 to Feb. 22, averaging about Jan. 20.”
“The cabbage white is now emerging a week or so earlier on average than it did 30 years ago here,” Shapiro said. He estimated his 2014 find ranks as "the fifth or sixth earliest since 1972."
Shapiro delivered the butterfly to the Evolution and Ecology office, where it was verified by Sherri Mann and Joe Patrocinio. No one else has submitted an entry.
The professor, fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal Entomological Society and the California Academy of Sciences, initially calculated he would find the butterfly either Jan. 17 or 18. “It may have been out Monday (Jan. 13), but I was in Chico delivering a talk to the Northern California Botanists on “What Did Sacramento Valley Butterflies Do Before There Was Yellow Starthistle?”
While searching for the cabbage white on Tuesday, Shapiro also spotted a small male buckeye butterfly, (Junonia coenia) along the trail, and a mourning cloak (Nymphalis antiopa), perched on and flying around leafless willows. “That’s the fourth earliest antiopa in the valley ever,” he said.
Shapiro said he will be celebrating his victory by sharing a pitcher of beer with a friend at an undisclosed Davis venue. “It will be PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon) because I get to choose.”
The cabbage white butterfly inhabits vacant lots, fields and gardens where its host plants, weedy mustards, grow. Mustards, however, are late this year, he said, pointing out the drought. “The record for consecutive days without rainfall in the winter here is 44. We’re on the 38th day and I see no chance of rain in sight, so this record will be broken.” However, a "good Pineapple Express," he said, could easily erase the drought.
Now, with the first-flight butterfly caught and in the history/record books, “it is spring because I say so.”
Shapiro maintains a website on butterflies at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu, where he records the population trends he monitors in Central California. He and biologist/writer/photographer Tim 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.
Suds for a bug...this is the cabbage white butterfly that Art Shapiro caught Jan. 14. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Professor Art Shapiro with his newly netted cabbage white butterfly. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A Bad Day for a Butterfly
It was a bad day for a butterfly.
We stopped by the Ruth Risdon Storer Garden, part of the UC Davis Arboretum, at noon today as triple-digit temperatures climbed to a scorching 103.
We spotted a few cabbage white butterflies (Pieris rapae) nectaring the Verbena (Verbena bonariensis), and a few honey bees on the gaura (Onagraceae).
The cabbage whites seemed to like the Verbena. They fluttered around the blossoms gracefully, touching down like snowy princesses in winged gowns and spiked heels, belying the fact that their caterpillars are pests of cabbage, kale, radish and broccoli, mustard and other members of the family Brassicaceae.
One cabbage white, however, wasn't so lucky.
As we rounded a corner of the garden, we noticed it wasn't fluttering. It wasn't moving. It wasn't doing anything.
There was a good reason why it wasn't going anywhere.
A hungry crab spider.
Crab spider with its kill, a cabbage white butterly. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
This one got away. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
He Nabbed It on New Year's Day
Art Shapiro knows where to find the cabbage white butterflies (Pieris rapae).
No sooner had he announced his annual "Beer-for-a-Butterfly" Contest, then he found one. Actually, two.
Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at UC Davis, has sponsored the annual contest since 1972 to draw attention to the butterfly and its first flight. He's been monitoring butterflies for more than three decades.
He awards a pitcher of beer (or its cash equivalent) to the first person who collects the first cabbage white of the year in a three-county area: Yolo, Solano and Sacramento.
Tuesday, Jan. 1 2013 dawned rather cold. Not to worry. That afternoon, at precisely 1:18 p.m., Eureka! Shapiro collected a cabbage white near a railroad embankment in the Yolo County city of West Sacramento and spotted another at the same site.
“At 1:29 p.m., I saw a second rapae there but did not pursue it,” Shapiro said. “I figured that by the time I got near it, it would be somewhere else, so I let it be. The one that I took is unambiguously of the fall brood, based on phenotype--though it appears to have emerged today. Rapae was still flying here Dec. 17 and Dec. 24, so I was not entirely surprised to find it today.”
Of the contest, Shapiro said: “I do not close my beer contest if the fall brood slops over. So the contest is still open and will be until someone gets an actual example of the 2013 brood! Which, I suspect, will not be for 10-14 days...but I'll be looking, especially since the computer models are forecasting the next two weeks ‘dry.’
Shapiro related the details of his find. “Our family traditionally attends a New Year's Day party in Sacramento, regardless of the weather,” Shapiro said. “If the weather is good, I go in the field first--usually to North Sacramento, which is close to the party venue in Boulevard Park. But this year I went to West Sac instead, advisedly, because I was intensely curious whether rapae would indeed be out.”
“The wind was biting and made it feel colder than it was, but West Sac is wind-sheltered (the railroad embankment) and the south-facing slope was 50 degrees when I arrived at 11:45 a.m. It eventually topped out around 55-56 and actually felt warmer."
The cabbage white butterfly inhabits vacant lots, fields and gardens where its host plants, weedy mustards, grow. Shapiro saw some wild radish (Raphanus) in bloom, but no wild mustard (Brassica) in bloom. The first butterfly he saw was a Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) flying “from south to north, lickety-split.”
At 1:18 p.m. he spotted a rapae flying rather unsteadily parallel to the service road. “I lost it momentarily, then spotted it body-basking on a wild mustard leaf and caught it easily. It was a male of a typical late-autumn phenotype, heavy black pattern above, underside of hindwing bright yellow with a sprinkling of gray scales.”
“And it was incredibly fresh--the wings seemed soft, and one forewing got outside its corresponding hindwing in the net. This is something that happens occasionally with newly hatched bugs that are not fully ‘hardened’--I was afraid it might break off! I think it must have emerged today, and I got it on its maiden flight."
Shapiro, who usually wins his own contest, snagged the first cabbage white butterfly of 2012 at 11:50 a.m. on Sunday, Jan. 8 in West Sacramento. He caught the first cabbage white butterfly of 2011 at 1:21 p.m., Monday, Jan. 31 in Suisun City, Solano County.
Meanwhile, the contest is still under way, pending the declaration of a winner.
The rules state that butterfly must be collected outdoors in one of the three counties and delivered live to the office of the Department of Evolution and Ecology, 2320 Storer Hall, during work hours, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. All entries must list the exact time, date and location of the capture and the collector’s name, address, phone number and/or email.
“The receptionist will certify that it is alive and refrigerate it,” Shapiro said. “If you collect it on a weekend or holiday, hold it your refrigerator but do not freeze it. A few days in the fridge will not harm it.”
Shapiro, who is in the field more than 200 days a year, has been defeated only three times since 1972. And all were his graduate students, whom he calls “my fiercest competitors.” Adam Porter defeated him in 1983; and Sherri Graves and Rick VanBuskirk each won in the late 1990s.
For more information on the beer-for-a-butterfly contest, contact Art Shapiro at amshapiro@ucdavis.edu, (530) 752-2176
Close-up of cabbage white butterfly in mid-2012. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A Beer for a Butterfly
What a deal.
Whoever collects the first live cabbage white butterfly of 2013 in the three-county area of Yolo, Solano and Sacramento, can win a pitcher of beer, compliments of Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at UC Davis.
If you don't drink beer, not to worry. You can collect the cash equivalent.
Every year since 1972 Shapiro has sponsored his "Beer-for-a-Butterfly" contest to draw attention to Pieris rapae and its first flight. “It is typically one of the first butterflies to emerge in late winter,” he said. “Since 1972, the first flight has varied from Jan. 1 to Feb. 22, averaging about Jan. 20.”
Shapiro, who usually wins his own contest, snagged the first cabbage white butterfly of 2012 at 11:50 a.m. on Sunday, Jan. 8 in West Sacramento, Yolo County.
“This was usually early and was due to the prolonged midwinter dry spell in the winter of 2011-2012,” he said.
He caught the first cabbage white butterfly of 2011 at 1:21 p.m., Monday, Jan. 31 in Suisun City, Solano County.
The cabbage white butterfly inhabits vacant lots, fields and gardens where its host plants, weedy mustards, grow The butterfly must be collected outdoors in Yolo, Solano or Sacramento counties and must be delivered live to the office of the Department of Evolution and Ecology, 2320 Storer Hall, during work hours, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. All entries must list the exact time, date and location of the capture and the collector’s name, address, phone number and/or email.
“The receptionist will certify that it is alive and refrigerate it,” Shapiro said. “If you collect it on a weekend or holiday, hold it your refrigerator but do not freeze it. A few days in the fridge will not harm it.”
Shapiro, who is in the field more than 200 days a year, has been defeated only three times since 1972. And all were his graduate students, whom he calls “my fiercest competitors.” Adam Porter defeated him in 1983; and Sherri Graves and Rick VanBuskirk each won in the late 1990s.
When he wins, he kindly shares his prize with his graduate students and their significant others.
All in all, the cabbage white butterfly contest “helps us understand biological responses to climate change,” he said. “The cabbage white is now emerging a week or so earlier on average than it did 30 years ago here.”
Shapiro maintains a website on butterflies at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/, where he records the population trends he monitors in Central California. He has surveyed fixed routes at 10 sites since as early as 1972. They range from the Sacramento River Delta, through the Sacramento Valley and Sierra Nevada mountains, to the high desert of the western Great Basin. The sites, he said, represent the great biological, geological, and climatological diversity of central California.
Shapiro and biologist/writer/photographer Tim 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, a distinguished professor, is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal Entomological Society, and the California Academy of Sciences.
For more information on the beer-for-a-butterfly contest, contact Art Shapiro at amshapiro@ucdavis.edu, (530) 752-2176.
In the meantime, you might want to scout out vacant lots, fields and gardens in Yolo, Solano and Sacrament counties to see if you can find a cabbage white butterfly before Shapiro does.
Cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae, nectaring on catmint. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Pop Goes the Pieris
Pop goes the Pieris.
So wrote professor Art Shapiro of the UC Davis Department of Evolution and Ecology from his office in Storer Hall.
Yes, he won his own contest again.
Every year since 1972, the butterfly expert has sponsored a beer-for-a-butterfly contest to see who can find the first cabbage white butterfly (Pieris rapae) of 2012 in the three-county area of Sacramento, Yolo and Solano.
He netted a newly emerged male at 11:50 a.m. on Sunday, Jan. 8 in in West Sacramento, Yolo County, to claim his own prize.
Shapiro immediately announced he would take his graduate students and their significant others out for a beer in a few days to celebrate. His students are typically his fiercest competitors in the contest, which is designed to aid in his studies of biological response to climate change.
Sunday’s capture date is the second earliest of record in 40 years, the earliest being Jan. 4, 1990. Shapiro said it reflects “the extraordinary sunny and dry weather that has persisted all winter, with warm afternoons, frosty nights, and little cloudiness or fog.”
“There have been numerous high-temperature records set in northern California, both in the valleys and in the Sierra Nevada, “ Shapiro said. “The abnormal conditions cannot be linked causally to global warming but are related somehow to the current La Nina, now in its second year.”
Shapiro noted that many regional first-flight records for butterflies were set during the severe drought of 1975-76, before “ the signature of global warming was observed.”
“In 1976 we had species flying at the end of January that normally come out in March,” Shapiro observed. “If the current weather pattern continues another two weeks, all those records will be at risk.”
He also pointed out that due to the lack of rainfall, germination of herbaceous plants has been very poor. “If butterflies and other insects are tricked by the weather into emerging early, the resources they need will simply not be there!”
Showing his keen sense of humor, Shapiro joked that politicians of a certain persuasion had something to say about the contest. "Despite my willingness to share the prize, news that I had won again drew harsh criticism" from them, he said. "Despite their own differences, they unanimously pointed out that I teach evolution and study climate change, both of which they consider to be hoaxes."
Shapiro, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal Entomological Society and the California Academy of Sciences, maintains a website on butterflies at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/, where he monitors butterfly population trends in Central California. He has surveyed fixed routes at 10 sites since as early as 1972. They range from the Sacramento River delta, through the Sacramento Valley and Sierra Nevada mountains, to the high desert of the western Great Basin. The sites, he said, represent the great biological, geological, and climatological diversity of central California.
Meanwhile, we're waiting for the 2013 beer-for-a-butterfly contest. We think we know who will win it! The winner's name starts with an "A."
Professor Art Shapiro with his newly found cabbage white butterfly. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
This is the first cabbage white butterfly found this year in the three-county area of Solano, Sacramento and Yolo. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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