Pulelehua, the Week of the Butterfly

     Ever since we arrived back in October, we had been pointing our academic lepidopteran efforts towards the few days surrounding the New Year.  Three days before the New year I was to give my first butterfly lecture, and two days after the fireworks, on New year's eve,  we would assemble our colleagues to install the Butterfly Exhibit of the Century.  

The children attack the props.

     Every week or so I would glean another fact or educated opinion from Daniel Rubinoff, the head butterfly guy at UH Manoa.  For example, there is little seasonality to butterfly life cycling in Hawaii.  Like well behaved garden butterflies, all the butterflies go about their reproductive business in an uninterrupted progression: 6 days for egg gestation, 20 days for caterpillar maturation (including 5 molts), 14 days in the chrysalis and/ three weeks as an adult butterfly.  This pattern is surprisingly constant across the range of our butterflies.

    Plants came to the Hawaiian Islands 80 million years ago and butterflies 12 million years ago.  The mass extinction followed the arrival of the Polynesians with the rats that they inadvertently brought along, resulting in the loss of at least 50 species of birds, many of them flightless, countless plants, and possibly butterflies.  

A Monarch flies in the Kailua Kona Library

    All of which is to say, I was getting an advanced education in island biology with which to regale my audience.  

    Not only that, but my beneficiary at the Keiki Museum of Hawaii, Anne Van Brunt,  had provided me with a new medium, fast drying clay.  At first I produced a fistful of nudibranchs, which of course have little to do with butterflies.  But then, warming to the task at hand, I whipped up  a veritable platoon of caterpillars and a bounty of chrysalises. 

    Well, the day finally arrived, and I arrived at the museum at 9 AM to give my lecture. I had my notes, of course, and a variety of props: butterfly models representing all the butterflies found on the Big Island, three clay chrysalises and my legion of caterpillars.  Many of these were fastened in groups, representing the progression of molting instars for a given species.  What turned out to be an unfortunate event, a few were sent into battle singly.  Woe be it to the unaffiliated caterpillar with no card stock upon which to take refuge.  

The Gulf Frit Group.  Instars, butterflies and a Chrysalis

    The reason these clay caterpillars were at such personal risk was that my audience was comprised of eight year olds: six boys and three girls.  As I lurched into my topic, it became apparent that my lecture would not hold their attention for forty minutes.  We shouted "Pulelehua!"  We stood and did wing exercises, flapping, soaring and resting with our back wings folded forward for camouflage. We even took a group run around the museum, flying our butterflies.

     At the eighteen minute mark the first recalcitrant had snuck up to the tree containing the chrysalises.  In a few minutes I had the entire audience  playing kilter with the butterflies, attempting to balance them among the branches that bore the tiny, helpless chrysalises.  One outlier had totally out flanked, and in my distraction, had absconded with the free range caterpillars. Separated from their fellows, those unfortunates were now charging one another in a battle royale.   I had yet to wax poetic about eggs, with which Mother Nature has blessed Phyla on both sides of the Vertebrate/ Invertebrate divide. 

   Yes!  The lecture had a ways to go, but we weren't going to get there. I enclose a picture captured by my loving wife.  You see the children attempting to place butterflies in the bush.  At the same time I'm struggling to keep the talk going.  Meanwhile to the right, Jyness, who was responsible for the program, seems to be wondering, "Is this the time to jump in and re-direct?"

The Asian Swallowtail Group.

    Regrouping, two high school interns, my lovely wife and I  hauled the children from the table and had them practice catching a feather in a butterfly net.  Lecture over.

    This was not the happiest day of my life.  Which is not to say that I haven't had worse. Some Elmer's Glue and judiciously applied paint would rehabilitate the props.

   New Years Eve came and went, with the obligatory aerial fireworks, and soon it was January 3rd, the day we would install our exhibit at the library.  

   Sandra and were met at the library by the Children's Librarian, our good friend Jennifer.. Kau'i, as she now prefers to be addressed, in this age of native Hawaiian awakening, would have done an infinitely better job than I when it came to herding cats at the Keiki Museum.  This day she was our supervisor and IT specialist. 

    The 10 butterflies of the Big Island were installed, along with their caterpillars, chrysalises and an educational description.  Three species, the Monarch,  Kamehameha and the Gulf Frit were blessed with an additional suspended model, soaring, as it were, through the exhibit.  

Black Witch and Butterflies at the Library

    Our swallowtail exhibit features four instars that appear comical with eyes that mimic a vertebrate like a lizard.  Although you and I are unlikely to see these in real life, this is apparently what these caterpillars look like.  

    You might note how the chrysalis of both the swallowtail and the Large Orange Sulfur are attached to the branch, not by a single cremaster (the hook that protrudes from the tail of the penultimate instar), but rather a three point suspension made from silk pads and treads.  Butterflies and moths produce silk in a modified salivary gland in the mouth, along with a spinerette. 

   Two weeks ago our pal, Anne Van Brunt, went caterpillar crazy.  She collected 7 chrysalises from the  milkweeds at a bordering Macy's parking lot.  In doing so, she was able to retain the silk and re-use it to suspend the chrysalises from a string, demonstrating what strong and durable material this silk is.   And she hatched five out of seven.  What a girl!

    The Black witch moth exhibit is so lifelike, with a model resting against the wall, it even had Kau'i doing a double take.  

Kamehameha and monarchs in all their forms.

    By the next day Kau'i had a banner installed.  Unlike my infamous lecture, this turned out pretty well.  I realize most of you won't have a chance to visit the exhibit, but I'm including some pictures so you get the idea.  Perhaps next Christmas you will find a clay caterpillar in your stocking!

jeff

Editors note:  Due to the interest of our colleagues at UH Manoa, we are adding a few more pictures demonstrating the butterflies, caterpillars and chrysalises  found in this collection.  This blog will soon and for perpetuity be found as a link on the site associated with the Insect Museum at UH Manoa!

Large Orange Sulfur Butterfly Sleepy Orange Butterfly      

            Phoebis agarithe                     Eurema nicippe

The Sulfur Butterfly Group.  We have two yellow butterflies on the Big Island.  Both were introduced in the last century and have a variety of host plants.  In the exhibit we also show the caterpillars of the Large Orange Sulfur and their chrysalis.  Note that like the Asian Swallowtail, this caterpillar forms its chrysalis by anchoring in a pad of silk at its tail and suspending from two silk strands from the thorax, both anchored to silk pads on the branch.  

The Monarch Butterfly, its caterpillar and its five instars.

The Monarch is perhaps Kona's most iconic butterfly.  Virtually everyone recognizes this large bronzy butterfly with its distinctive wings, bearing a precise black vein pattern   As much as any butterfly, especially those with a complex wing pattern, the monarch is the same on ventral and dorsal wing surfaces.  Associated with native milkweeds in North America, it has long had a Pacific population.  It was introduced to Hawaii in the the early 1800s when "civilized people" imported crown milkweed for a garden shrub.  Monarch migration in North America is famous, but this population has never been migratory.  It is equally famous as a butterfly one can rear from a kit including milkweed starts.

   Here see five instars of the Monarch.  Of course in life the first instar is only a couple milometers in length.  Note how different the instars are from one another!  The final instar gets quite large, over an inch.  It crawls to a branch, lays down a patch of silk, and attaches by its ventral cremaster and suspends head down to molt into it's chrysalis.  

    Find the chrysalises in the tree early in the blog.  The initial chrysalis is lime green.  At maturity it turns black and then clear, just before the butterfly emerges.  The chrysalis is only an inch in length, yet as the Monarch emerges, it expands to a butterfly with a three inch wing span.  Amazing! 

The initial Monarch Chrysalis, a mature chrysalis and a caterpillar in the first stage of pupating.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

       The Kamehameha butterfly is our state insect, the true pulelehua.  (Although in spoken Hawaiian today, pulelehua may

A male kamehameha soars through the exhibit

refer to any butterfly.  Vanessa tameamea has evolved from a wayward vanessa butterfly that landed on Hawaii 12 million years ago, presumably bearing fertile eggs.  Simple arithmetic tells us that is 72 million generations in which to evolve into this distinct species, linked inextricably to māmaki, the native Hawaiian nettle, which grows like a shrub.  Māmaki cultivation may be providing a new home for our butterfly,  and hence, the Kamehameha Butterfly is found sometimes in residential areas.  

 We also show the third and 5th instars of the tameamea caterpillar.

 

Red Admiral and Painted Lady the other Vanessas

Behind the Kamehamehas, you see the Red Admiral and the Painted Lady. Vanessa atatalanta and Vanessa cardui.  Both are known from Europe and North America and were introduced to Hawaii in the late 1800s .  If one had to  pick the butterfly that was the original migrant, 12 milllion years ago, he could do worse than the Painted Lady.  It is a famous wanderer, migrating each year from Northern Europe to Africa for the winter. It stops a couple times n the way to throw in a new generation.  

 

      

 

The 3rd and 5th instars of the Kamehameha Butterfly

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dorsal view of Blackburn's Blue pair below, a Lesser Grass Blue

    On Hawaii Island we have two little blue butterflies.  As a group they are tiny, the size of a dime.   Little blue butterflies are not particularly rare.  We have at least six species within a two hour drive of Portland, Oregon, which is a poor place to watch butterflies.  Males tend to be blue on top, while females are brown.  The fine pattern of spots on the ventral surfaces, identical in both sexes,  is the key to identifying the species. On Hawaii Island, the introduced Lesser Grass Blue Butterfly has such spots.  Our endemic, Blackburn's Blue or the Koa Butterfly is iridescent green below. If you see a little blue butterfly in Kona, it is the introduced grass butterfly.  Our endemic lives at altitude in Koa forests.

 Above we see the dorsal view of both species.  In fact, they look fairly similar and would be difficult to differentiate in the wild with this view alone.  This is frequently the case with little blue butterflies which is why you either have to catch them or photograph them!  

    Below we see the ventral surfaces, a bright green on the ventral surface of the Koa and a buffy field with a panoply of black and brown spots on the the Lesser Grass butterfly.

 

 

 

 

   The Black Witch Moth is one of our favorites.  and the only moth in the exhibit.  It is a common sight around Kona, resting on the side of the house or perhaps your window screen.  There is significant sexual dimorphism.  Males lack the bright cross wing bars borne by the female.

Tutu on the wall, Tio flying by and Bubba below.

   I was unable to find a picture of the cocoon, but Dr. Rubinoff tells us "I have reared them and the larvae form, as I recall, a loose webbing in the soil surface in which they pupate. Like in mulch or loose leaves if I recall correctly. Only butterflies make a Chrysalis. I don't have images, it's fairly unremarkable I'd say, and surprisingly small given the size of the moth."  

     Here we  present you with a caterpillar that makes that unremarkable pupa.  

   This moth is native to Texas and Latin America.  There, when they see a Black Witch they think they are in the presence of an evil spirit.  In Hawaii we think it is a friendly visit from a departed relative.  Armed with this knowledge, you will now know whether it is your mother or father who has come for a visit.

  I hope these pictures have been delightful and educational.  Thanks again to Daniel Rubinoff, Caitlin LaBar and everyone else who has nurtured my interest in butterflies.

jeff