Can we get more than 56 species?

There are less than two weeks left in the 2019 Butterfly Blitz. We've collected so much wonderful data since June, but we've been stuck at the same number of species for a while now. Can we break that barrier?

First, a side note: you may notice that our project page says we're at 55 species. But, we're actually at 56 species. Last week few of us went out and we found a butterfly that is considered vulnerable in Ontario - the Black Dash (https://inaturalist.ca/observations/30482552).

Because it is a vulnerable species, the location of the observation is automatically obscured on iNaturalist. And, for variety of reasons, this means that the observation is not picked up by the Butterfly Blitz project. If you want to see the total count, including the location obscured records, you can check out this umbrella project: https://inaturalist.ca/projects/cvc-butterfly-blitz-full-7ddbc2ca-2a74-4184-aaec-d823cc1a36a3

(and now that we know how this works, next year we will set things up a bit differently!)

A few species that we haven't seen yet this year but that could be out there include:

  • Fritillaries other than Great Spangled Fritillary (e.g. Aphrodite, Silver-bordered, Meadow)
  • The species that like hackberries (American Snout, Hackberry Emperor, Tawny Emperor)
  • Coppers (e.g. American Copper, Bronze Copper)
  • Later season species (e.g. Common Buckeye, Fiery Skipper, Leonard's Skipper)

Some of these are somewhat rare species, but some good butterfly hunting might turn them up (if they're around). Are you up to the challenge?

Posted on August 13, 2019 06:48 PM by lltimms lltimms

Comments

I have gone out a couple times to spots with planted hackberries to try and find a snout, but no luck! Right along the lake would be best but I don't know of any sites where hackberries have been planted.

Posted by reuvenm over 4 years ago

Glad to hear you've been looking!
You can try these sites: https://inaturalist.ca/observations?place_id=130116&taxon_id=54857
And also look at the City of Mississauga street and park tree data:
http://data.mississauga.ca/datasets/city-owned-tree-inventory

Posted by lltimms over 4 years ago

I have seen Leonard's Skipper near Forks of the Credit before. Bronze Copper and Silver-bordered Fritillary definitely occur in northern parts of the watershed too.

Although it's a bad year for Fiery Skippers so far, there should definitely be some Common Buckeyes around. Disturbed areas near the lake would be the best bet.

Posted by reuvenm over 4 years ago

I've seen Bronze copper at Wolf lake, Terra Cotta (last year) https://inaturalist.ca/observations/15725496

Posted by carl-adam over 4 years ago

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