{"id":21847,"date":"2024-06-08T18:43:07","date_gmt":"2024-06-09T01:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/?p=21847"},"modified":"2024-06-08T18:43:07","modified_gmt":"2024-06-09T01:43:07","slug":"2024-june-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/?p=21847","title":{"rendered":"2024 June 8"},"content":{"rendered":"

2024 June 8<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jeff Gaskin writes:\u00a0 Well today, June 8,\u00a0 I finally found a swallowtail.\u00a0 There were two actually and they were both in Colwood.\u00a0 These were Western Tiger Swallowtails<\/strong> with one seen on Latoria Road\u00a0 and the other one on Sunheights Drive,\u00a0Triangle mMountain.<\/p>\n

At least one Cardinal Meadowhawk<\/strong> was still at the ponds in Cuthbert Holmes Park as were the several California Darners<\/strong> but I didn’t see one butterfly there.\u00a0 [To which Jeremy Tatum adds:\u00a0 And I went to Quick\u2019s Bottom today \u2013 not a butterfly in sight.]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Marie O\u2019Shaughnessy visited Government House on June 5, where she saw
\n5 Cabbage Whites
\n1 Mourning Cloak
\n2 Western Tiger Swallowtails <\/strong>that were busy chasing one another.
\n1 Pale Tiger Swallowtail<\/strong><\/p>\n

Marie counted ten Cabbage Whites<\/strong> in the Martindale\/Island View area on June 7.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"Mourning Cloak Nymphalis antiopa\u00a0 <\/em>(Lep.: Nymphalidae)
\nMarie O\u2019Shaughnessy<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"Western Tiger Swallowtail\u00a0 Pterourus rutulus\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>(Lep.:\u00a0 Papilionidae)
\nMarie O\u2019Shaughnessy<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You wouldn\u2019t think it would be at all difficult to distinguish between Western and Pale Tiger Swallowtails.\u00a0 In fact, it is not unusual to come across a tiger swallowtail that one isn\u2019t quite sure of.\u00a0 Look at this one, for example, photographed by Aziza Cooper recently:<\/p>\n

\"\"Tiger swallowtail\u00a0 Pterourus <\/em>sp. (Lep.\u00a0 Papilionidae)\u00a0\u00a0 Aziza Cooper<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t quite sure, writes Jeremy Tatum, so I sent it to a local butterflier, who writes:\u00a0 That\u2019s a very interesting one. The black markings are certainly those of Western Tiger and much too narrow for Pale Tiger. Over the years I\u2019ve seen 3 or 4 Western Tigers with very pale yellow backgrounds but I don\u2019t think any of them were quite this pale. I\u2019ve often wondered whether the two species can hybridize though I\u2019ve never seen any references in the literature to this happening. Conclusion: I would put it down as a Western Tiger<\/strong> though I wouldn\u2019t feel 100% confident about that.<\/p>\n

Another small detail, writes Jeremy:\u00a0 The crescent near the tail of the hind wing is supposed to be \u201cusually\u201d yellow in the Western Tiger Swallowtail, and \u201cusually\u201d orange in the Pale Tiger Swallowtail.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t a totally reliable feature, but, for the record, the crescent on this one certainly isn\u2019t orange.<\/p>\n

Another possibility, besides possible hybridization, is that this is a \u201cleucistic\u201d Western Tiger Swallowtail, in which the yellow is replaced by white.<\/p>\n

Comments by viewers are welcome.<\/p>\n

Other butterflies seen by Aziza are:<\/p>\n

On June 7, Mt. Tolmie summit had a Mourning Cloak<\/strong> and a Tiger Swallowtail<\/strong> at about 2 pm.\u00a0 On June 8, the powerline near Hartland Landfill had 10 Western<\/strong> Spring Azures<\/strong> and one Tiger Swallowtail<\/strong> before 11 am.<\/p>\n

On June 6,\u00a0 Aziza Cooper photographed the bumble bee below at Cowichan Station.\u00a0 Thanks to Steven Roias for identifying it as a male Bombus mixtus<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"Male Bombus mixtus\u00a0 <\/em>(Hym.: Apidae)\u00a0\u00a0 Aziza Cooper<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2024 June 8 Jeff Gaskin writes:\u00a0 Well today, June 8,\u00a0 I finally found a swallowtail.\u00a0 There were two actually and they were both in Colwood.\u00a0 These were Western Tiger Swallowtails with one seen on Latoria Road\u00a0 and the other one on Sunheights Drive,\u00a0Triangle mMountain. At least one Cardinal Meadowhawk was still at the ponds in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-invertebrate-alert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21847"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21850,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21847\/revisions\/21850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}