{"id":1107,"date":"2018-04-08T22:55:25","date_gmt":"2018-04-08T22:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.e-butterfly.org\/?p=1107"},"modified":"2018-04-09T00:03:16","modified_gmt":"2018-04-09T00:03:16","slug":"getting-blues-dispatch-northeastern-north-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.e-butterfly.org\/wordpress\/fr\/getting-blues-dispatch-northeastern-north-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting the Blues: A View from Vermont"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Although they measure barely an inch across, the azures (in the genus Celastrina) cause a mile of consternation among lepidopterists. Even as these butterflies present sparks of blue, their taxonomy remains cloudy and controversial. I won\u2019t resolve it for you here. Instead, I\u2019ll tell you some of what we know or suspect about these blues, including revelations from recent research in Canada. Along the way, you\u2019ll discover how butterflies can expand our knowledge of nature, and maybe even allow you to witness evolution happening in your own backyard. <\/p>\n

Just One Word: Plasticity <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The first thing to remember is that butterflies \u2014 perhaps more so than birds and other flying things \u2014 are very much creatures of their environment. Their bond with plants is one of the great alliances in evolution. A Monarch gets its toxins from the milkweed it ate as a caterpillar, for example, and a Bog Copper lays her eggs only on cranberry leaves because that is all her caterpillars can eat. No milkweed or cranberries? No Monarchs or Bog Coppers. Or, as a butterfly might see it: I eat, therefore I am. <\/span><\/p>\n

Most butterfly caterpillars are picky eaters like this, some relying on a diet of a single host plant \u2014 and nothing else. For the most part, it produces order for us among butterflies: distinct, recognizable species eating their own particular plants. <\/span><\/p>\n

Not so the azures. They\u2019re a beautiful mess. The little 1 blue butterfly too often known simply as \u201cSpring Azure\u201d has been a moving target with multiple identities for at least three decades. In the field, we recognize among azures a complex of three or more distinct varieties \u2014 or phenotypes. They differ mostly in the dark spots and 2 blotches on the underside of the hindwing. This is not the random variation of a Dalmatian, for example, but rather distinctive forms with specific patterns of spots and blotches or varying shades of blue above.<\/span><\/p>\n

This kind of variation actually isn\u2019t so odd in nature. Many species break into regional or continental subspecies whose appearance varies somewhat by location: Savannah Sparrows breeding on the island of Cape Sable, Nova Scotia, and wintering on dunes and beaches of the East coast, are paler (more sand colored) than all the other Savannah Sparrows breeding in grasslands across the continent. White-tailed Deer on Long Pine Key in Florida are the size of German shepherds \u2014 still a legitimate White-tailed Deer, mind you, but only smaller: a \u201cmini-me\u201d adapted to vanish (and survive) behind waist-high shrubs. So it goes, evolution by means of natural selection, also driving diversity within a species. What\u2019s odd about our Spring Azure is that its varied forms basically cohabitate \u2014 we often find them together in the same places at the same time of year (or pretty close to the same time). They\u2019re sympatric, which means \u201cof the same fatherland.\u201d This is somewhat odd (and one of the reasons I\u2019m writing about azures).<\/p>\n

Read the the entire article written by field naturalist Bryan Pfeiffer (with footnotes, images and links) at\u00a0https:\/\/bryanpfeiffer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Getting-the-Blues-Celastrina-2Apr2018.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Summer Azure photographed in Vermont on July 13. \/ \u00a9 K.P. McFarland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although they measure barely an inch across, the azures (in the genus Celastrina) cause a mile of consternation among lepidopterists. Even as these butterflies present sparks of blue, their taxonomy remains cloudy and controversial. I won\u2019t resolve it for you here. Instead, I\u2019ll tell you some of what we know or suspect about these blues, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,6],"tags":[],"better_featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-butterfly.org\/wordpress\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-butterfly.org\/wordpress\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-butterfly.org\/wordpress\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-butterfly.org\/wordpress\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-butterfly.org\/wordpress\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1107"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-butterfly.org\/wordpress\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1116,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-butterfly.org\/wordpress\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107\/revisions\/1116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-butterfly.org\/wordpress\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-butterfly.org\/wordpress\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-butterfly.org\/wordpress\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}