Arizona Part Two, Prescott

    Knowing that it was terribly hot in Phoenix, we had planned the majority of our trip for higher altitudes.  Prescott, at almost 5,000 feet was not only higher but 20 degrees cooler. 

The White Striped Sphynx Moth, mort.

 

   Before I could pick up a net, Sandra found our first insect.  A White Striped Sphynx moth had expired in the corner of the steps leading up from the garage.  Suffice it to say, he held still for the photograph.  Later in our trip I wondered if he wasn't dead, just taking a long winter's nap, perhaps, because he seemed to have changed position.  As it turned out, my sweetie had attempted to extricate him for a better look, but he was sort of stuck.  And definitely dead.  To paraphrase John Cleese, "This moth was no more."

    Soon enough I picked up my net and on our first full day, in a grassy patch down the road, I found a yellow butterfly.  I netted him on the wing and brought him back to the laboratory.  He required a tiny bit of the freezer time (less than15 seconds) to render him cooperative. Once he was tractable, we got a fine lateral picture and then he flew.  

The Southern Dogface Butterfly, Prescott, Az.  April 2026

   At this point we made a game changing discovery, as he flew into the sink.  The surface tension of the relatively thin film of water there had adhered his wing to the porcelain, enabling us to take an acceptable picture of his dorsal surface.  This picture will never make the cover of Beautiful Butterflies, but many is the time when we have had a butterfly that would flap furiously yet never hold still in the wings out position for a portrait of his dorsal surface.  

   Do you suppose Neils Bohr or Albert Einstein were the recipient of some serendipitous accident that changed their game?  A quantum leap, as it were?  Is it possible that we could have defeated Tojo and Hirohito with wet butterflies in lieu of Little Boy and Fat Man?

    Well, for those of you who find yourselves in the dorsal surface quandary, I give you the Wet Porcelain Paradigm.

   Google lens initially suggested the California Dogface Butterly.  This, of course, was ridiculous, as everyone knows that the Dogs (or Dawgs if you prefer) reside in Seattle and Athens. Ga. And this turned out to be the Southern Dogface Butterfly.  Caitlin LaBar, in addition to the literature, points out that the California Dogface occurs only in California.  Cait says it has a purplish tinge to the black markings.  What a subtle lepidopterist is Ms. LaBar.

Porcelain Magic, The Southern Dogface Butterfly

    That was it for day one.   The following day, Chuck and I made a morning trek down to the swale near the spot where the pretty yellow Dogface was found.  A seasonal flow of water runs through this area, which supports grass and some sort of tall deciduous trees.  There were birds singing in the trees and we spotted some finches.  Also, a small gray bird in the top of one of the trees that might have been a kinglet or a vireo, but it was plenty drab and failed to hold my attention.  And, anyway, I was there for butterflies.     

   We didn't see anything for a while, and then a large tiger swallowtail came winging its way down the swale.  It flew right past us and Chuck, who was holding the net, gave three quick, fruitless swipes.  In his defense, I find it very difficult to net fast flying butterflies as they whip past. 

The Checkered White attempts and escape

   Chuck attempted to give chase, climbing halfway up a rip rap wall that supported the nearby tennis court.  Suffice it to say, that baby was gone. 

    As he came and went (the butterfly, not Chuck), I had a chance to get a pretty good look.  The things that struck me were, first, that he was very yellow.  Second that he was big. 
 

   Why all this fulmination?  Well, there is a life butterfly to be had.  You might have suspected as much.  The Two Tailed Swallowtail is the Arizona state butterfly.  Here is the information that Gemini AI gives us to support this choice.  First, the TTS is 20% bigger than the Western Tiger Swallowtail, and Mr. G thinks that is as enough to make it identifiable on that basis alone.  Of course, us lepidopterists know that butterfly size, unlike birds, is very tricky.

The Checkered White Butterfly, Prescott, April 2026

     Second, although the base yellow color on the two is very similar, the black markings on the WTS are thicker and bolder than on the Arizona TTS.  The black eats up more of the yellow ground, hence the Two tailed Swallowtail looks more yellow.  

     Last, the Arizona TTS emerges earlier than the Western Tiger Swallowtail.  And this emergence, as Cait will readily tell you, is based on humidity and temperature.  The TTS peaks in early May and WTS peaks a month later.

  If you see the double tail you, have it.  Which I did not. Place sad face emoji here.   

    At the end of the day, I think it is safe to say that my good buddy Gemini thinks we saw the Arizona state butterfly, albeit he will have to appear with an asterisk as big as the Grand Canyon.  Next time I see Mr. G at the Flap On Inn, I'm going to buy him a beer.  

Double the fun!

    After all that, you might think we did not see any more butterflies.  Far from it.  That afternoon I took my net and went back to the swale.  The sun was out, and it was pleasant enough to just sit on a flat rock and enjoy the sun on my back.  While sitting there, a white butterfly happened along.  I had seen several white butterflies at the golf course in Paradise Valley and thought they were cabbages.  I mean, who wouldn't?   In this case I stood up and moved in on the culprit, who had foolishly landed in a nearby clump of grass.  Positioning my net, I scooped him up.

    Back at the ranch, Sandra and I went through our usual procedure and produced the pictures you see here. This is the Checkered White.  It is a common spring butterfly in Arizona.  When I first caught him, it seemed like his ventral surface was a bit more yellow than appears in the picture.  

    On our last full afternoon, I made one more attempt at the butterflies in our bucolic development.  I looked long and hard at the seep but there were no butterflies there.  On the dry weedy ground above the seep, I spotted one of those tiny checkered moths.  I guess they are everywhere.  Luckily this one eluded my effort at capture.  As I have difficulty extricating the butterflies and getting them in the bag, this might have ended the hunt.  

Gray Buckeye ventral

    A few minutes later, I saw a dark butterfly land in the dry weeds close by.  As I approached, I recognized it as my new best friend the Ocellated Buckeye.  I approached the buckeye and attempted the catch, flopping the net over the butterfly, at which Sandra is so successful.  I, unfortunately, am not and the buckeye slipped out from under the metal loop and flew across the street.  Rats!

    This afforded me the opportunity to walk up the swale for fifty yards.  During that walk I made the acquaintance of a Rufous Sided Towhee perched on a branch, uttering that cat like call as he checked me out.  It was a little disappointing that we did not see the brown towhee, which must be around Prescott.

   Back on the road, I walked across to the spot where the buckeye had fled.  As I was standing there, a gentleman came along and we discussed what I was doing.  He was Swedish and claimed to know all the butterflies in Sweden.  He was an avid walker and could describe many of the butterflies in the vicinity, including a large blue butterfly with ocelli.  Sounds like a morpho, which would be about a thousand miles out of range.  He went off, presumably to enjoy the smorgasbord of life that the highlands of Arizona have to offer, and I returned to the butterflies.  

Gray Buckeye, Prescott, April 2026

    Soon another Gray Buckeye appeared.  I netted him as he landed in some taller grass and made it back to the ranch with my trophy in hand.  Here you see our best efforts.   After posing for a chilled ventral photo he flopped onto the floor, ending up a bit nose down.  So, our best pictures have a knotty pine background.

   Prescott was great for April butterflies.  I got tantalized by the possibility for an orange spot, and in the process learned what water cress, a wild mustard, looks like.  We'll keep our eye out for that beauty in the future.  Bob is still up one on me with the Arizona orange spot, but apparently, I have him 51 to zip on peccaries!

jeff