The pearl crescent is a common North American butterfly. It is found almost everywhere through out the US except for the west coast. It can also be found in most of Mexico and parts of southern Canada. Adult are usually found in open fields, roadsides, pastures and other open spaces where they feed on nectar from a variety of flowers including milkweed, dogbane and asters. Pearl crescents lay their eggs on the underside of aster leaves which is what the larva, caterpillar, eat.

Pearl Crescent

The pearl crescent, Phyciodes Tharos, is a common butterfly found in the eastern two thirds of North America. It ranges from southern Ontario in the north down through Mexico in the south. Adults lay eggs on plants in the aster family, which is the larval host plant. They over winter in their larval, or caterpillar, form.

South Dakota Butterflies

For those of you who are like me, and really miss seeing butterflies around, here are a few pics that I took while I was at the shorebird workshop that I took back in August (8-8-08) in South Dakota .
This first picture is an example of a least skipper. You can identify the least skipper by the unmarked hind wing as well as the black and white antennae. This looks like it is a male because it has a thin pointed abdomen. Females have a shorter abdomen.
Typically there are two broods of least skippers during the summer. The first brood is from the middle of June to the middle of July. The second is late July to late August. In the picture above the skippers are reproducing. Since this pic was taken in early August their offspring would be a part of the second brood.

The pearl crescent is another common butterfly in the upper Midwest. They are called pearl crescents because of a light patch on their wings which is called a pearl. Unfortunately the butterfly in this pic is at the wrong angle for us to get a look at the pearl.
The clouded sulphur is another common butterfly. Since they over winter in their chrysalis they have a very long season. You can see clouded sulphurs from May up into November.
When I first found this butterfly I was surprised and confused. It looked very much like it was an endangered Karner blue butterfly, which are not typically found as far west as South Dakota.
When I got back home and began to go through the picks I looked it up in one of my butterfly field guides, I should have brought a butterfly field guide with even though it was a birding trip. I discovered that this was actually a Melissa blue butterfly.
The Karner blue is an eastern subspecies of the Melissa blue. The Melissa blue is much more wide spread and not threatened like the Karner blue is. This mostly has to do with the fact that the Karner Caterpillar will only eat parts of the lupine plant where the Melissa blue caterpillars eats various members of the pea family. Since the Karner is dependent on the lupine they are more susceptible to population decrease if there is less lupine around. Melissa blues are found in open fields and prairies from California to southwestern Minnesota.

Carpenter Butterflies

Well yesterday we received about a half foot or more of snow. It looks like we will be having a white Christmas this year. It also is looking like it might be another long winter. Which means we are looking at four to five months before we get to see green fields, wildflowers, and butterflies. Fortunately pictures don't hibernate, migrate or die during the winter and I have a lot left from this summer to share.
These butterfly pics where taken at the Carpenter Nature Center at the beginning of September (9-1). This first butterfly is a pearl crescent. Pearl crescents are pretty common in the eastern half of the US and can be found in almost any sunny field. Most butterflies do not have a very long lifespan in their adult form, usually only a few weeks, and you can often get an idea of how long they have been around by what shape they are in. This individual looks pretty rough and faded so it has probably been around for a few weeks.
The red admiral, pictured above, can be found through out the world, except places of extreme cold. This red admiral may be filling up with nectar in preparation for migration.
The monarch is probably the most well known butterfly in the world. Like the red admiral above the monarch also migrate south, except they do so in more significant numbers. But not all monarchs migrate. In the northern part of North America the first brood of monarchs become butterflies in early July. This group of monarchs will lay eggs and die with out leaving their northern homes. It is their offspring, that will become butterflies in late August that will migrate to southern California or central Mexico. There they will hibernate in a type of suspended animation. When spring comes they will awaken, mate, lay eggs and die. Their offspring will head north and populate the areas which the monarchs left to migrate south the year before.
This year butterfly enthusiasts and photographers in south eastern Minnesota where lucky because there was a small invasion of giant swallowtail in the early fall. We typically only see one or two stray giant swallowtail that wander over from Iowa or southern Wisconsin, which is the northern portion of their range. This year though there were quite a few of them around in late August and early September.
One of the reasons why we do not usually see these large colorful butterflies is because the host plants for the giant swallowtail caterpillar are members of the citrus family and citrus does not do very well here in Minnesota.