Butterflies for Beer

(Credit: David Cappaert, Insectimages.org)

If you happen to be living out in Yolo, Solano or Sacramento counties you should head out with a net.  Dr. Art Shaprio has offered for the 40th year his cabbage white butterfly competition.  If you are the very first person to catch a cabbage white (Pieris rapae – invasive) before Dr. Shapiro he will buy you a pitcher of beer!  You have to deliver the specimen alive to the receptionist in the Department of Evolution and Ecology to confirm the identification (I assume to prove you didn’t just save last year’s dead butterfly and cheat).

Over the last 30 years the butterflies have been emerging earlier – two weeks on average now.  You better hurry, the first cabbage white of 2010 was collected on January 27th.