268 Butterflies Fluttered By

Last week a group of 8 butterfly enthusiasts spent two days counting these winged beauties. Poor weather at the official North American Butterfly Association Count on July 4 motivated the group to perform their own count here at the Arboretum, a haven for butterflies. The final tally revealed an impressive 33 species and 268+ sightings in just four hours!

Here's the complete list of their findings (click each for images and more information):

• 105+ cabbage white
• 43 orange sulphur
• 17 monarch
• 15 silver spotted skipper
• 14 red admiral
• 12 pearl crescent
• 12 tiger swallowtail
• 9 clouded sulphur
• 7 eastern tailed blue
• 7 zabulon
• 6 pecks skipper
• 4 least skipper                                            
• 3 meadow fritillary
• 3 sachem
• 2 black swallowtail
• 2 horace duskywing
• 2 spicebush swallowtails
• 1 european skipper
• 1 gray hairstreak
• 1 question mark
• 1 tawny-edged skipper
• 1 viceroy
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  268+ butterflies! How many have you spotted?

The Philly Bees' Stake in Pollination

by Stephanie Wilson, Endowed Plant Protection Intern

This past fall, I have been running around Philadelphia with an insect net in hand, surveying the wild bees (non-honey bees) in Philadelphia. The very fact that you can grow many vegetables and flowers in the city is because wild bees are present and pollinating. But very little is known about these city slickers and how they survive such a rough habitat: pavement instead of bare ground (which they dig nests in), patches of flowers instead of rolling meadows, and competition from non-native bee species that are slipping in through our shipping ports. This is exactly what I am researching as part of a survey of the flora and fauna that the USGS is conducting.

Stephanie Wilson (L) and Bombus impatiens (Common Eastern Bumblebee) pollinating a gentian Gentiana sp. (R)