The Gorgone Checkerspot Comes Home

Gorgone Checkerspot (Chlosyne gorgone)

This project started out here at the Nature Museum nearly a year ago when we attempted to get female Gorgone Checkerspots to breed in the lab. The first week of July, 2009, we got 3 females. They laid a bunch of eggs in the lab and we started raising the caterpillars. Sometime in August they stopped feeding, and in September we put them to bed for the winter. In April we roused them from hibernation, learning in the process some important things about holding butterflies over the winter. We had 94% survival over the winter (!). The larvae have been eating like mad, and pupated about two weeks ago. Yesterday (June 3) we brought about 250 adults out to the Nachusa Grasslands for field release.

Vincent and Robin releasing Gorgone Checkerspots

Nachusa Grasslands is a huge prairie site owned by The Nature Conservancy. It contains perfect dry hill prairie habitat that the Checkerspots require. the caterpillars feed on pale purple coneflower. As you can see in the photograph above, there is ample hostplant on the gravel hills to support a population of this butterfly.

Robin shakin' it

Many of the butterflies needed to be coaxed out of the cage

The butterflies were transported in cylindrical screen-sided cages. They needed to be coaxed out into their new home. Perhaps they knew that they were entering a predator-filled world.

Dot's Knob

Nachusa is a beautiful prairie that covers rolling hills. the drier tops of the hills (or knobs) are the preferred habitat of this species. We released the butterflies on Dot's Know and Doug's Knob- named for two early supporters of Nachusa.

I really hope this was a productive mating

We saw lots of mating- both in the cage and with released butterflies. I hope lots of egg laying follows. It will be another year before we know whether there has been successful reproduction on site. Welcome home Gorgone Checkerspots!

Putting the Spring in Bluff Spring Fen

Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris)

It's marsh marigold time at the Fen. In a good year, the watercourses are all lined with vivid yellow. This is proving to be a good year, and the effects are spectacular.

Saturday was a Fen workday. While most of the crew was pulling garlic mustard, Kevin and I continued an experiment that has been going on for a few years. We are trying to re-vegetate the bare peat soil of a badly degraded seep by transplanting native sedges that have grown up onto a gravel spit that was bulldozed out into one corner of the Fen. I blogged about it last year. Our results are being very successful. The transplants settle in for the first year, then begin to spread rapidly through vegetative growth. This success is motivating us to continue the experiment.

Carex trichocarpa
Two years ago, this seepage slope was mostly bare peat soil

Spring is in evidence all around the Fen. I am pleased that some of our trout lilies have become sufficiently established to begin blooming.

Trout Lily (Erythronium albidum)

Migrant birds are returning.

Red-headed woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus)

Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis)

I mentioned recently that the 12-spotted tiger beetles are out now. I keep trying for a better photo. I'm making incremental progress, but I'm not yet where I want to be with that species.

Twelve-spotted Tiger Beetle (Cicindela duodecimguttata)

While tiger hunting, I ran into the Fen's other common species. It was a bit earlier than I was expecting.

Six-spotted Tiger Beetle (Cicindela sexguttata)

Overall, it's shaping up as a fine spring at the Fen.

Hibernation

A whole bunch of the caterpillars in the lab have shut down for the winter. We have been expecting this, as both the Gorgone and Baltimore Checkerspots overwinter as caterpillars of about this stage. They have been caged with fresh leaves, and have stopped eating them over the last couple of weeks. Instead, the caterpillars just sit in small groups on the tops of the cages not moving much. Time to put them into their winter quarters.



The larvae are placed with crumpled paper towels in small plastic food cups. Over time, they will work their way into the folds of the paper towels. Some caterpillars will even silk the folds of the towels together. The cups go on a terra cotta sauceer, and a terra cotta pot is inverted ovet the top.



The drain holes in the pots are plugged with gauze to keep marauding insects out. The whole affair is stored in a shaded area up on the roof of the Nature Museum. Last year, about 70% of the gorgone checkerspot larvae that we placed in these cages survived the winter, and all survivors went on to become adult butterflies. On Friday we placed 512 Gorgone Checkerspot caterpillars and 1256 Baltimore Checkerspot caterpillars into these cages. The field season isn't over- but it is winding down.

Set My Butterflies Free

Glacial Park on a Sunny Autumn Day

The weather here has been very photogenic lately. I say photogenic rather than nice, because it has felt more like October than late August. It has not cracked 70° in several days, though it's beautifully sunny. We have been doing a bunch of butterfly releases. On Sunday we brought 70 Silver-bordered Fritillaries up to Glacial Park in McHenry County. We have done releases there before, with little success. This year, we opted to try a release in a wetter, sedgier part of the park.

Vincent opens the flight cage.
Welcome oome, Fritillaries!

We tried a different method of transporting the butterflies this time. Instead of placing them in individual containers and chilling them for the trip out, we left them in a flight cage. We just carried the cage out onto the prairie and opened it. I was skeptical- but it worked pretty well. The butterflies began flying immediately, but they didn't leave the area. Most very quickly landed on sunflowers and began feeding. We saw a lot of courtship activity- always a good sign.

These Silver-Bordered Fritillaries flew out of their cage and went
directly over to these flowers to begin feeding.

Yoesterday we headed out to the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory to release caterpillars of Baltimore Checkerspots. This is a really gorgeous species that we had not previously worked with. So far, we have been very successful- we have over 1500 caterpillars in the lab. Yesterday, we placed 250 of them out on plants.

Robin Places Balrtimore Checkerspot Caterpillars on Turtlehead

Female Baltimore Checkerspots lay their eggs on Turtlehead, the primary host plant in this part of the country. That's the plant that we put the caterpillars on.

Baltimore Checkerspot Caterpillar on Turtlehead Plant

The caterpillars have just about finished eating for the year. They will spin a communal web near the base of the plant where they will spend the winter.

Baltimore Checkerspot Caterpillars in Communal Web

We kept most of the Baltimore Checkerspot caterpillars in the lab. They will be held over the winter on the Museum roof and reared to adulthood in the lab. Next June, we will add the adults to the same release site. Next summer, we hope to see lots of adult Baltimore Checkerspots out on the grounds of Fermi.

Baltimore Checkerspot
We want to see lots of this at Fermi Lab next summer.

Prairie Adventure with Andy and Adam

About three weeks ago, I went on my annual Arizona trek. Part of my plans involved meeting up with Homer and heading down to Bisbee to visit Cobban and his partner Ray. As is his wont, in advance of my arrival, Homer did a poll on his blog to determine what dessert he should whip up for the occasion (lemon cupcakes. They were delicious).

The day before my departure for Arizona, an email appeared in my inbox:

My name is Andy; I'm an acquaintance of Homer Thiel and I found your blog through my huzbin Adam via Homer. Apparently you know Ray and Cobben as well? Crazy.

My family has an old 400 acre place in southwest Wisconsin in the driftless area that we've been gradually restoring to tall-grass prairie and oak savanna for the last 25 years or so.

Amazing! Fascinating! The very next day. we decided to get together on my first night in Arizona. In another amazing coincidence, they lived 3 houses away from the B&B where I was staying (cue Twilight Zone music...). We spent the evening taking and drinking wine (Rodger will find a theme here). They were both delightful folks, and very much kindred spirits.

This past weekend, Adam and Andy were up in Wisconsin on their prairie. Yesterday, Leon and I headed on up to see the place and meet Andy's parents, who own the property. Tom and Eva are every bit a nice as their son (apples not falling far from the tree and all that), and we had a delightful day. The 400 acres is most impressive.

Restored prairie on dry hillside

The family has obviously put a lot of work into their restoration. The oldest sections are reverting very well to native vegetation. The newest are, well, new, but I'm sure they will come along just fine. The wetlands, currently pink with Joe Pye weed are especially impressive. The farm is in the driftless area, so it's quite hilly. The underlying rock is sandstone rather than the limestone that I'm more accustomed to.

Driftless Area - This hill wasn't flattened by the last glacier

View from the sandstone bluffs on one of the hills

Wet prairie with Joe Pye Weed

We were invited to dinner- and stayed, even though this meant not getting home until 11:30 last night. The late afternoon view from the deck where we dined (photo below) faded into a night of flickering candles and fireflies, accompanied by good food and conversation. Our new friendships have been such an unexpected and pleasant surprise.

View from the table at the start of dinner


L-R: Doug, Adam, Andy, Leon

Busy, Busy, Busy

Baltimore Checkerspot Habitat

This time of year is typically insanely busy for me- but this year seems to be especially crazy. Last Tuesday, Leon had minor surgery on his hand. He's doing fine, but that started off a really hectic time. On Thursday, I went to some private property near Crystal Lake to get some Baltimore Checkerspots for a breeding program. We got seven females, four of whom have already laid eggs in the lab.

Baltimore Checkerspot (Euphydryas phaeton)

Thursday afternoon, I continued north up to the city of McHenry to attend a meeting about Gypsy moths. This non-native species is just beginning to invade Illinois, and there is a lot of potential for collateral damage to some of our rarer native butterfly and moth species through Gypsy moth control efforts.

Ron at the Blacklight

From the Gypsy noth meeting, I got in the car and drove 2 1/2 hours to a spot west of Dixon, Illinois where I joined my friend Ron for blacklighting. Our quarry was Schinia lucens, the leadplant flower moth. This prairie moth has become extremely rare in Illinois, and we're looking to breed it in the lab. We got three (one probably a male) over the course of the evening. I drove home and stumbled into bed just after 3 AM.

Leadplant Flower Moth (Schinia lucens)
Photo: Ron Panzer

Friday morning, I was up at 7 to drive Leon to his follow-up appointment at the surgeon's. He was in great shape, so I dropped him off at his work, then continued on to my own. Friday afternoon I was supposed to go back to Grundy County to get more Gorgone Checkerspots and Silver-bordered Fritillaries. It was cloudy and rainy- probably just as well for me. I stayed at work and plodded through the afternoon then went home to pack and crash.


Pack? Well, yes, there's lots more. Saturday morning, I was up bright and early and drove to Kankakee Sands in west-central Indiana for this summer's Illinois Butterfly Monitoring Network field workshop. We had a great turnout and saw some really cool butterflies, including Regal Fritillaries (unfortuntely I did not get a decent photo). From there, I drove directly to Toledo, Ohio, where I am right now. For the next four days, I'll be part of a tem of instructors offering a course on butterfly conservation.

I find what I'm doing right now to be exciting, a lot of fun, and utterly exhausing. At work, we currently have eggs from at least three imperiled species of butterflies, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how this work unfolds over the rest of the summer. Additionally, I can't wait until I depart for my trip to southeast Arizona a week from Friday.

Skywatch - Prairie Thunderstorm with Butterflies

My field season began yesterday- on the hottest day of the year so far. The goal was to collect breeding stock for this year's conservation activities. Vincent, Robin, Jay and I headed out to Grundy County. As we left town, we drove beneath some cumulus clouds that had a strong vertical aspect. By the time we got out to Gardner Prairie, they had grown to an impressive thunderstorm that soaked the city. In contrast, we had sun the entire time.

Gardner Prairie

Gardner Prairie is where we got our gorgone checkerspots for breeding last year. It's also reputed to be home to a population of leadplant flower moths. We found neither this time around. We will keep trying!

Commonwealth Edison Prairie

If Gardner Prairie was a bust, Commonwealth Edison Prairie was a near bust. We went there seeking Silver-bordered Fritillaries. We got three ragged females. Apparently we're at the very end of this year's first brood and the second has not yet begun. We saw lots of other butterflies, however, and I got a few photos in.

Two-spot Dkipper (Euphyes bimacula) -

Crossline Skipper (Polites origines) - An uncommon priaire species


Peck's Skipper - A common species that I didn't have a good digital image of.
I still don't.

See more Skywatch here.

Gorgone Checkerspots Break Diapause

Gorgone Checkerspot (Chlosyne gorgone)
Image from wisconsinbutterflies.org

Gorgone Checkerspots are rare in northern Illinois. Years ago, my very first experience with butterfly translocation was to help Ron Panzer try to establish a population at Nachusa Grasslands. Last summer, we began a project to attempt breeding this species in the lab. We obtained a gravid female from a railroad prairie in Grundy County, and got dozens of eggs from her. About half of the larvae went on to complete their life cycle. The other half went into diapause (a general cessation of activity) sometime in August.

Larva Land - Wintering Cages at the Portland Zoo

In September, Vincent and I visited the Portland Zoo to learn techniques for holding larvae over the winter. It's a process we continue to struggle with. They were using a technique where caterpillars are placed in yogurt cups and stored outdoors under inverted terracotta flower pots for the winter. They were having success with a close relative of the Gorgone Checkerspot, so we decided to give their technique a try.

All winter long, our Gorgone larvae have been under flower pots on the museum roof. Last week, we realized that their host plants had sprouted sufficiently for us to try waking them up. We put them in caterpillar rearing cages with purple coneflower leaves. For several days, not much happened. On Thursday, I suggested that Vincent move a couple of the cages into direct sunlight. Several of the caterpillars promptly molted. On Friday, everyone went into the sun.

Gorgone Checkerspot larvae on Purple Coneflower leaves (5/9/09)

Today, all of the surviving larvae have molted and begun feeding. You can see all the frass (insect poo) and a shed skin on the bottom of the cup in the photo above. I had no idea that molting would be the first step that would happen when the larvae broke diapause. A brief shot of direct sunlight seems to be essential in the process. About half of the larvae that we placed outside survived the winter (that's reasonably good, especially for a first try). We will repeat the experiment on a larger scale this year. There are several hill prairies in northeastern Illinois that could soon be home to new populations of this lovely species.

The Bonfires of Winter

Brush clearing is a typical winter activity for prairie restoration groups in the Chicago area. Others have blogged about it. We have come out of our bitterly cold spell of late last week (meaning it has gotten into the teens). Still, yesterday's stiff southwest breeze resulted in a wind chill of -3° F and had the Bluff Spring Fen folks in agreement about one thing. Whatever we did on our work day, it would have to involve a bonfire. We had a good one, too. Between the fire and the exertion, we stayed nice and toasty all day. Plus, we accomplished a lot.


The bonfires of winter exemplify one aspect of prairie restoration that I really like. In our modern world we often go from heated (or air conditioned) car to heated (or air conditioned) office, eat strawberries in January, and generally lack a fullness in awareness of the seasons. Prairie work is a great way to connect with the ebb and flow rhythm of nature through the year.

Moving Sedges

Carex trichocarpa on a gravel spit at Bluff Spring Fen

This post seems really lame. I wanted to write something profound and insightful about the fact that Proposition 8 passed (which depressed me royally). I just haven't been able to come up with the words. Probably because I'm royally depressed.

OK, look at the pretty plants. A problem that we have in various parts of Bluff Spring Fen occurs when sedgey areas are shaded out long enough that they die off completely, and there is no seed bank. The bare peat doesn't take new plants well, and it's very harrd to gaterh quantities of seed for the plants- mostly sedges- that should be growing there.

(Mostly) Bare peat in a degraded seep

A second problem that we have arises out of the fact that the Fen was slated to become a sewage treatment plant sometime in the 1970s. During site evaluattion, a number of gravel spits were bulldozed out into the fen's wetlands. These alter hydrology, and are often colonized by non-native plants. We are planning to have some of these removed with heavy equipment over the winter. One of them somehow grew up in a native sedge (Carex trichocarpa rather than non-nattive vegetation.

Carex trichocarpa that was transplanted last spring

For about a year, I've been slowly transplanting the sedges off of the gravel spit ant onto an area of bare peat around one of the seeps in a corner of the nature preserve. They have done very well. Most have not only survived but have begun spreading by runners. Onb Saturday, I transplanted a bunch more. I'me hopeful that this area will transform from bare peat (with a few aggressive weeds) into a nice sedge meadow over the next several years.

Purplish Coppers

Things are really happening in the conservation breeding lab at the moment. In addition to the Silver-bordered Fritillaries, Regal Fritillaries, and Swamp Metalmarks, we're breeding Purplish Coppers. We have been attempting to do a restoration project with this species for three years now. The problem is the population from which we planned to take founder stock. This once thriving population crashed unexpectedly two years ago. We saw no individuals whatsoever for either of the last two seasons.

Purplish Copper Caterpillar

About a month ago, we got a call from a contact at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, site of the population in question. The coppers were flying again in some numbers. We rushed out to the site and collected six females. They settled into teir eyy-laying cages for a day or two, then began laying eggs like mad. the eggs have hatched, and we now have 282 caterpillars, grwing rapidly. I expect adults within the next three weeks. We will be starting a new population up in Lake County, near the Wisconsin border.


Update: The first of our adult swamp metalmarrks has emerged. We have nearly two dozen more pupae that will emerge over the next week or so. This is only the sedond adult that we have ever produced in my lab. I like this photo because it really shows why they are called metalmarks.