PAINTED LADIES -- ECOLOGY -- CLIMATE WARMING

They’re in a hurry -- heading north where it’s temperate.  Must find  a mate -- lay some eggs --   lots of ground to pass over in only two weeks before they die.   They fly fast – “about 20 miles per hour and they’ve been clocked at 25”.    They “...winter in various places in northern Mexico and Southern California like the Mojave Desert...preferring open habitat like desert, sage growth and meadows.”  They’re painted lady butterflies in this Robbie and Gary Gardening Easy video:  

Emerging from my house one morning this week I was enveloped in a river of painted lady butterflies flowing up my driveway, swooping all about me, upward over my garage.  I drove my car to Route 66 with butterflies continuing to dart around the vehicles there, too, as the painted ladies migrated southwest toward ....  where?

Ecologist Jeff Holmquist, a research scientist at the UCLA White Mountain Research Center and the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability describes how the painted ladies ate and ate and ate when they were mere caterpillars (before making a chrysalis) storing up an incredible amount of energy – “a backpack full of food...that’s an abdomen full of fat” before emerging as a butterfly.  “You may as well imagine eating like crazy for a week, crawling into a sleeping bag for a few weeks, and coming out as an eagle”. 

“If you see them hit your windshield, you’ll see that yellow spat, and that’s the lipids.  Fat reserves are very important for a lot of insects, and that’s part of why many societies are rediscovering them as food right now, or have traditionally eaten them.  Butterflies are very fatty.” 

“Expect to see earlier migrations, as the climate warms.”   The painted lady is “probably the world’s most widely distributed butterfly, living everywhere but South America and Antarctica.  There’s a very large migration in Eurasia that’s even more striking than what we have right now, and one that goes from the Sahara to England.”

“A lot of species are very specific in their choice of host plants, but painted ladies aren’t picky.  They're real generalists ... eat lots of thistles, sage, sunflower and mallow plants ... so they’re fine.  But we’re in danger of losing so many other species”

Support butterflies and biodiversity by planting some milkweed.  

“Monarch butterflies need milkweed.  People need to plant the native northern milkweed – the southern, more tropical milkweeds don’t have the same seasonal cycle, and that may remove an important migration cue for monarchs.  Other than that, any good nectar plants are good for a butterfly garden”. 

The painted ladies numbers were thick that I encountered at my house and on Route 66 compared to those shown in the 9+ mins. video above.   The Next Morning segment beginning 6+ mins. into the video I thought was of special interest. 

I did slow a bit as I drove down the Route 66/Foothill Blvd. that has a 40/45 mph limit in my effort to minimize painted lady casualties, all the time wishing the butterflies would fly a bit higher in the sky. 

Migrations of all types are fascinating as some readers here have written about on their blogs. 

I think, too, about the many varieties of insects other societies eat, including some butterfly caterpillars as Holmquist has described some native American Indians do.  

Climate warming not only will have humans adapting but vegetation and creatures on our planet will be doing the same.   What will we be doing -- will our diet be altered -- will we care even more for creatures other than ourselves -- so much unknown.   

Unorthodox Pets

Pets come in all forms, shapes and sizes -- animate and otherwise. Some selections may be considered unorthodox by other people, but that doesn't deter me from considering unusual possibilities.

Praying Mantids and Lady Bugs have long fascinated me as have Walking Sticks, too. I planned to write about my experience with the mantid and the lady bugs earlier this year. Events did not develop quite as I expected so I could share pictures of matured creatures. Here's what happened.

This past spring when I entered a local hardware/garden store where I was confronted with a display selling containers of young lady bugs and praying mantids eggs. These two insects are natural predators who devour certain unwanted destructive bugs preying on any vegetables, flowers and other garden plants. I decided to splurge, unable to resist purchasing one container each of these insects.



I intended to put the praying mantids egg-like container into a fishbowl per one recommended option so I could observe their gradual emergence once they developed to hatching stage. The more I thought about them, I even considered keeping a couple as pets since the instructions suggested that might be a possibility if I kept them fed -- ground meat was mentioned.

Unlike other pets I've had, they wouldn't have to be walked with the ever present plastic bag I'd have to tote so I could stoop over to pickup a stinky mess to carry along until disposing it later at home. Likewise there would be no need for rug clean-up after an inevitable sickness or potty accident. There would be no toiletry litter box inside the house threatening unwanted aromas if not replaced periodically. No messy hairballs, or urinary tract infections causing uncontrolled sense of urgency resulting in neutered male felines unintentionally spraying the guest room bed pillow. I certainly wouldn't be subjected either to those manipulative behaviors of eye gazes, cunning growls, or hypnotic purrs often emanating from some pets to which I often succumb much too easily. These prospective pets I was considering would be quiet, making not a sound.

There would be no fish bowl requiring water to be changed or containing new little ones to be protected from being eaten by their mother. I reasoned that I could always turn my pet praying mantids loose in a tree if unknown forces caused them to acquire unmanageably large proportions or they became vicious. They could fend for themselves and I wouldn't be reported to the Humane Society for cruelty, abuse or for abandoning my pet. I bet they wouldn't bother to come back home, either.

Time lapsed before I enacted my plan. Before I was ready I noted these young mantids were already escaping the brown paper-thin-like egg in which they had been placed to hatch. I could see quite a few of the tiny mantids were still inside the now broken egg-like structure so I hastily initiated the next step. I carried the brown egg container out to a flowering tree-like shrub in my back yard. I carefully placed the brown eggs in crooks of the branches as instructed, then emptied the remaining small mantids onto limbs where they presumably would find smaller insects to eat that compose their carnivorous diet.



The lady bugs, full grown when I purchased them, were placed in similarly recommended potential feeding sites on a few patio potted dwarf fruit trees. I managed to get a couple pictures at the time I released both of these insect varieties but my photo offerings are limited as everything was happening so rapidly.



Subsequently through the days, weeks and months my anticipated sightings of matured mantids have not materialized for photographing. I know there was increased bird activity in the backyard after I released my baby insects so those winged predators may have feasted on some of my new small creatures. I should have stayed out there with them for a while instead of coming inside for my camera. The lady bugs who avoided being eaten may have eventually flown away. I choose to believe some of each of these insects have survived though I've been unable to sight any.

I think I'll try again next year seeding these insects in my outdoor growth if they're available for purchase at my store. Furthermore, I may just prepare for habitation a large fish bowl left over from our households years earlier pet creature activities. I'm through mourning the loss of my compost, worm juice producing wiggly farm some years ago. I may decide to have pets again.