How to report a butterfly

male Funereal Duskywing, photo by Bill Bouton

 

It's hard to imagine a more dramatic name than the Funereal Duskywing's (Erynnis funeralis). The name conjures up an image of a dreary black butterfly, possibly one whose preferred habitat is a graveyard. 

 

But let's be fair. This little guy is certainly not as dark as, say, a black swallowtail or pipevine swallowtail. 

Identifying the funereal is not as hard as identifying most Duskywing butterflies. It's hind wing shows a white fringe that's absolutely cheerful. No other butterfly in my area has this characteristic. I managed to get a photo that was good enough for identification, though not as gorgeous as the above photo by Bill Bouton, who shared his through Creative Commons.

I had a Funereal in the backyard a few years ago, before I knew that it was a rare species for my area. In the world of birders and butterfliers, "rare" means excitement. My mood was anything but mournful when I spotted it this time. The range map in Jeffrey Glassberg's Butterflies through Binoculars: The East shows the nearest population in central Kansas--500 miles or so west of my yard in Saint Louis Missouri. In Butterflies of North America, Kenn Kaufman and Jim Brock show it as uncommon as close as Rolla, MO--less than 100 miles from me.

I looked it up on Butterflies and Moths of North America. They include a map of reports, which showed a sighting as far north as the Illinois Wisconsin border. I decided to submit my report also. Their process is a little more rigorous and some citizen science websites. I'll go through the steps.

Step 1: In the menu of the website, click on "get involved." 

Step 2: Get a free account with Butterflies and Moths of North America (BAMONA for short). 

Step 3: Fill out the submission form online. You'll need to submit a photo of your butterfly or moth, and the photo needs to be cropped so that the insect fills the frame.  Stay with me here. This photo editing could be an obstacle but it doesn't need to be. I used to edit my photos on the photo-sharing website Flickr, with a free website/tool called Picnik. Picnik is no longer partnered with Flickr. They moved to Google+. Editing is still available on Flickr however, in a new tool called Aviary. Just use the action menu on the Flickr photo you want to edit. Of course you can also crop your photos with iPhoto or Google's Picasa--which looks a lot like Picnik. But wait! There's more. BAMONA also would like you to add your user name as a "watermark" to your photo. That's a lot easier than it sounds. Just use the text tool in the editing program you're using. Mine looked like this when I finished editing.

To complete the report you'll need to indicate on the map where the butterfly was seen. Just enter the address in the address box then check to see that the point on the map goes just where you want it. Finish by adding the state and county where you saw the butterfly or moth. 

Step 4: Wait anxiously for a reply from an expert in your region. The expert hopefully will confirm your report. My region's expert turned out to be a friend of mine, the chair of the entomology group of Webster Groves Nature Study Society.

Optional step 5: Send an email offering to let them use your photo on the website. The full instructions are on BAMONA.

 

 My thanks to you for staying with my blog. Now that I've cleared up the spam that led to my site being listed as "suspicious," I thought I'd better get cracking and write a post!

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Tiger Swallowtails are more beautiful, but when I spot a small, dark butterfly, I run for the camera! Small, dark butterflies include some of the most challenging identifications in our area, including the duskywings.

Jeffrey Glassberg, in Butterflies Through Binoculars; The East,  has the best quotation for this family in the spread-wing skipper butterfly group. He references a mysterious, unpublished text, The Rites of an Ancient Aurelian, by an anonymous author:

…and rising up like a dark cloud—the duskywings spread across the land, sowing confusion and dissension about butterfliers, the instrument of Erinnyes revenge.

Duskywing butterflies are tough to tell apart, but my task was somewhat limited by date and range for the butterfly in the photo above. I ruled out Juvenal's Duskywing, since it is only seen in spring in Missouri, and this fellow arrived on July 25. There is no dark band in the middle of the hind wing, so that eliminates Mottled Duskywing. Markings aren't right for Wild Indigo Duskywing, and in our area, we're too far south for Columbine and Persius; too far north for Zarucco and Funeral—though all 4 of these duskywings have occured here.
   
That leaves us with Horace's Duskywing—in this case, a male. However, I won't be offended if you find fault with my identification. Please leave your criticism in the comments!

I was lucky enough to have females in my yard this summer too, on July 11 and again on July 26. The female Horace's on July 26 was nectaring on one of the plants we love to hate, anglepod or climbing milkweed (Cynanchum laeve), which I wrote about in an earlier post.

What's up with the names of these butterflies? They must have been named by a classics scholar. Horace, Juvenal, and Persius were poets of ancient Rome.

Horace is most famous for the phrase, "Carpe diem!"—Seize the day! Juvenal's best known phrases include "A sound mind in a sound body," and—my favorite—"rare bird." Persius coined another great aphorism "Out of the frying pan, into the fire!" Though some sources suggest that all duskywings are named for Roman poets, I believe only these three are, though Columbine is a character in Medieval Commedia dell'Arte. The genus name, Erynnis, however is a reference to the three ancient Greek goddesses. The Erinyes, known to the Romans as "the Furies," punished criminals, especially murderers and those who were rude to his mother—Orestes, for example.

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The Erinyes are often depicted in black robes with short skirts, wearing boots, and carrying a whip—a bit like Emma Peel in The Avengers. A pretty intense name for an innocent little butterfly, don't you think?

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