This being Sunday, we have a dollop of John Avise‘s photos of North American butterflies. John’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.
Butterflies in North America, Part 16
This week continues my 18-part series on butterflies that I’ve photographed in North America. I’m continuing to go down my list of species in alphabetical order by common name. The following is an anecdote rather than a controlled observation, but I wonder whether other WEIT readers have a similar impression: Twenty years ago, butterflies of many species seem to me to have been far more abundant than they are today.
Silvery Blue (Glaucopsyche lygdamus), male:
Silvery Blue, male underwing:
Silvery Blue, female:
Silvery Checkerspot (Chlosyne nycteis):
Silvery Checkerspot, underwing:
Sleepy Duskywing (Erynnis brizo):
Sonoran Skipper (Polites sonora), upperwing:
Sonoran Skipper, underwing:
Spicebush Swallowtail (Papilio troilus):
Spring Azure (Celastrina laden):
Sylvan Hairstreak (Satyrium sylvinus):
Tailed Copper (Lycaena arota), upperwing:
Tailed Copper, underwing:
The Silvery Blue is a beauty. The best came first today.
Fewer butterflies? Sadly, yes. Many fewer. I hardly see any! Is the Silent Spring here? Fewer insects of all sorts, fewer bees, frogs, toads, lizards, snakes…I haven’t had a gecko in my house in years. I used to share my home with them and felt blessed by their presence. This is a tremendous loss. What do we do about this?
Ahhh, beautiful collection.
Very beautiful.
Nice!
Of course the decline of butterflies have been very much in the news lately, as scientific surveys have found it to be so, but I also think it is noticeable. Along with declines in other insects, spiders, birds, fishes, and so on.
I’ve never had much luck photographing Blues and some of the other smaller butterflies. They are too skittish to me for a macro lens, and too small for my zoom lens.
Beautiful.
Are butterflies becoming less abundant? It seems so anecdotally, but it’s hard to tell. I hope that research is ongoing. I do think there is research indicating that overall insect abundance has declined dramatically.
We tend to focus on species as the units of concern, but individual insects are just as important. For a species to become extinct, 100% of the individuals belonging to that species have to disappear. But by that time, the number had already declined through 90% to 80% to… 10%. The crisis has long been in the making by the time a species actually becomes extinct.
Nice collection! 🦋🦋🦋
Thank you, these are really making me look forward to summer!
Lovely Lepidopterans, as always!
Here is one recent article:
Rapid butterfly declines across the United States during the 21st century
Collin B. Edwards, et al. Science, 6 Mar 2025, Vol 387, Issue 6738 pp. 1090-1094
Thanks for the article, Susan, which in the abstract reports that “total butterfly abundance [in the last 20 years] fell by 22% across the 554 recorded species. Species-level declines were widespread, with 13 times as many species declining as increasing.” Sadly, my overall impression is that the declines have even been much sharper than this. Very depressing!
Lovely photos, as always, John, thanks.
I belong to the Indiana Native Plant Society. We have been preaching for years that the decline of native plants is responsible for the decline of insects and the birds who feed on the insects. Ornithologist Doug Tallamy has a program called Homegrown National Park, in which you can register your home garden of native plants in a national database. The theory is that combined, many individuals’ gardens make a national park. I marvel at your photos.