Butterfly update August 2001

A great summer for butterflies is continuing with a boom in the Painted Lady population. Large numbers of these bright orange and black butterflies are visiting flowers in gardens and clover along roadsides now, in late August. Painted Ladies are known for their periodic population explosions, and this appears to be one.


Fermilab hosts Gray Commas in the Big Woods! This relatively rare Anglewing butterfly, which I had only seen once before, at Waterfall Glen Forest Preserve near Argonne Lab, is living in Fermilab's Big Woods
(see map).


A large number of Bronze Coppers could be found in some wet roadside areas in early August, but have disappeared now. Unlike many butterflies, the Bronze Coppers produce another generation of adults in September, so hopefully the quantities of Bronze Coppers in early August portend another large generation in September. A total of six new species have been found at Fermilab so far this year, bringing the total seen in the past three years to 50.

Tom Peterson


(Tom Peterson started out as an amateur lepidopterist and ended up a professional engineer and an internationally recognized expert in the cryogenics science of the very cold. But he still watches butterflies.)


Butterflies at Fermilab