Mystery butterflies

[multicaudata]

Hello everyone

Has anybody ever had sightings of mysterious unidentified butterflies that you just can't make any sense of? I'm wondering if this happens to everybody or if it has to do with my poor field ID skills. I've had this happen a number of times over the years, close to home and on collecting trips. It's always the same: a Bigfoot/LochNess-style brief sightings of something that I can't identify, that doesn't make any sense for where I am, but is too far or too fast for me to catch.

[nomihoudai]

>I'm wondering if this happens to everybody or if it has to do with my poor field ID skills

This most certainly comes into play in this situation. The human brain is designed to recognize "patterns". A pattern is anything it knows that can be found elsewhere. If someone does not know too much about the local fauna, but a lot of tropical species he will see strange things. Of course there is no denial that you have seen what you saw, but it is more close to a Fata Morgana than reality.

In the first year I also saw strange things in my backyard, always kept on running after them and once I got them they had just been some boring species that I caught hundreds of times before.

In the same sense someone with entomological skills driving through the forest, who sees a blue light, will attribute this light to a light trap. Somebody else will stop on the road, mess up a good pair of pants, and tell all his friends he saw an UFO and that they are real.

[mantisboy]

This has happened with me too. One common event is when I'm sure I just found a rare butterfly, and then it turns out to be a fairly common moth. Last summer, I was covinced that there was a population of Pipevine Swallowtails (a very uncommon stray in Wisconsin) in my yard, which turned out to be the day-flying male Promethia Moths.

[leptraps]

During a field meeting of the Southern Lepidopterists Society to SE Georgia coast in 1999, I set a 40 Watt Light Trap in a wooded area adjacent to our motel.. We went to eat dinner at a local restaurant with a group of attendees. When we returned to the motel after dark we found a Sheriffs car with flashing blue lights and a group of people at the motel all looking into the woods where my light trap was in use. Several minutes later the deputy emerged from the woods with a shot gun in hand. He reported finding some sort of trap for mosquitos. However, when I stepped forward and explained to the deputy that it was my light trap and was used to collect nocturnal insects, the deputy seemed relieved. He explained that someone reported seeing a UFO land in the woods and it turned on its lights and was not moving.

I suggested he should test some of these folks for drugs. The deputy remarked, "I don't have enough room in the jail for this many people".

Red Necks, White Socks and PBR. (and possibly hemp)...............

[jonathan]

@ nomihoudai - your last paragraph made me laugh :-)

[bluemoth]

One Day here in Santa Cruz County CA. a few years ago I was driving down 41st street in Capitolla. I came to a stop light at the intersection and a few seconds be for the light turned green a lep. flew through the intersection. It was mostly black with blue and red patches on it. To this day I am still baffled by this sighting. Unfortunatly the lanes were packed with cars and I was not able to change lanes and fallow this mystery lep. Because of how it flew I think it was a moth but not a ctinucha. To much red and blue patch to bright.

[beetlehorn]

I absolutely enjoyed reading all the stories in this thread. It is true that our imaginations get the best of us at times, but then sometimes we see something so clearly, and with absolute certainty that it is even more mind blowing than an imagination. Let me elaborate.....two weeks ago my wife called me while I was at work, and she seemed somewhat excited, yet baffled at the same time. She explained that she was sitting on our front porch before noon, and observed a large Swallowtail descending from the side of the roof, until it was at waist level. She asked me if a butterfly could be black on one side(right side) and yellow with normal tiger stripes on the other?!? At first I thought No Way!!! Then she went into more detail, stating that there was a streak of yellow in the black side hindwing, including several other details she couldn't have made up. I realized she saw a gynandromorph Papilio glaucus. When I came home I showed her several photos of aberrant specimens, and she was rather adamant when she picked out the examples that matched her sighting. Now I find myself analyzing each and every thistle blossom, butterfly weed, and other flowers, scanning for what she saw. So far nothing, and most likely I'll never see one. I realize that this is an extremely rare phenomenon, so my chances are nearly zilch! Tom

[multicaudata]

Thanks for all your replies!

Bluemoth,
VERY interesting sighting! Have you considered Composia fidelissima "Faithful Beauty" (Arctiidae)? A whole continent out of range, but between their wings and ours, anything is possible I guess... It certainly has red and blue markings, and when I saw my first one in a hammock on Key Largo it certainly threw me for a loop!

My most interesting Lep "cryptid" sighting occured in September of '08 at San Bruno Mountain in San Francisco. My dad and I were showing a visiting lepidopterist from England around the Bay Area, including the Mission Blue sites at San Bruno. While we were walking along a trail between a willow hammock and lupine scrub, what appeared to be a Mourning Cloak flushed out of the bushes and dashed up the trail. Mr. Sutton really wanted to see a Cloak, so I followed it, watching where it would land. When it landed, I realized that this looked like no Cloak I'd ever seen: it was the right size but brighter red, approaching Vanessa tameamea, with at least one large Vanessa-like white marking on the forewing tip. It flew before I could get a good look, but I didn't see a pale border and it struck me as a Vanessa pattern, not a Cloak pattern, strongly recalling V. tameamea. I still have no idea what that was!

Okay, maybe that's not the strangest. Even stranger was a sighting in '06 in Ventura, a long time ago but I remember it like yesterday. While sitting in the back seat of a car (which had been pulled over by the police), I watched what appeared to be a large (Epargyreus clarus sized)entirely iridescent blue-black skipper with long pointed wings dashing around in circles over the road nearby. It was gone a moment later.

Another odd one, although not really a mystery sighting, was a MASSIVE Two-tailed Swallowtail I saw from a moving car near Mt. Shasta. It was flying down in a ravine, not particularly close to the road, but it was a magnificent dinner-plate of a swallowtail even from a distance. The day was cloudy, so definitely not an illusion due to sun glare.

These mystery sightings literally happen to me every day sometimes. I had two today. Most are surely due to simple field-ID mistakes, but some do seem truly strange! There's definitely still a lot unknown out there...

[multicaudata]

Beetlehorn,

KEEP LOOKING for that gynandro! In the past I've marked swallowtails in the local park, and recaptured one about a month later in the same spot. If there's a hilltopping/patrolling site nearby, check there too. A gynandro can't mate, obviously, but both the male and female instincts would tell it to go to mate-locating sites.

[bluemoth]

I did a little reserch on the Faithful Beauty Moth. I now do beleave that is what I saw. The oldest most western records of the moth are in Texas in the late 1800s be for a deep freeze there wiped them out. I guess this moth could of been shipped on a garden plant from Florida to a plant nushery in CA. Or may be a Florida visitor brought it back home to CA? Oleander a host plant of the moth is used in California as a decrotive shrub. I sure will look over any Oleander very carefully in the future for those ugly catirpilers of this species. How exciting it would be to find some.

[paradesia]

Wow, these stories are interesting. I recall around 1969 witnessing a rather large white butterfly patrolling the tree tops of this hill when I was in grade school. This was in a suburb called Fuchu next to Tama cemetary in Tokyo. I witnessed this at a distance and it flew moderately fast and in territorial circles above the canopy of a forested hill. There are no large white butterflies that comes close to this description in Central Japan. To me, it looked like one of those white South American Morphos. A baffling encounter that I have never been able to solve.

[Zacatak]

I find this topic very interesting as I too have had this experience before. I live in New Zealand and we have about 20 butterfly species, but unique to this country. the country next to us Australia has well over 450+ species...im in the wrong place to live considering im a fellow collector like many of you here. we have a couple of self introduced species such as danaus plexippus and Pieris rapae, but most of our butterflies are all native this country. the biggest butterfly currently in New Zealand is of course danaus plexippus, but what I saw one day back in 2011 to this day really haunts me. I was out in my back yard of my property just enjoying nature in the hot January sun in the middle of summer. the day was 30* and was bright and sunny. I then saw something flapping up high in the trees around the hight of 20 metres. I looked up in amazement at what was a butterfly that was about the size of papilio Ulysses. it didn't have the tails but looked similar in shape to danaus plexippus. many who I have talked to mentioned that it could have been just a very big danaus plexippus. but I disagree as this was much bigger. it was also a different color to danaus plexippus. it was bright yellow with a hint of brown, which danaus plexippus is orange. I originally thought it could have been a moth, but I was able to identify its flight pattern directly as a butterfly. plus with my experience with butterflies im able to spot exactly what species, or if it's a butterfly from quite a distance. it made me think that maybe it was a visitor from neighbouring Australia, as every year during the summer months we do get the odd Australian butterfly fly across the Tasman sea to new Zealand quite often. I once caught 5x Hypolimnas bolina in one day! a species from Australia which I caught in march 2007 in whakatane New Zealand, very rare to see even one single specimen. I caught 4 males and 1 female that day. anyway, only slightly getting off track, I thought it could have been an Australian visitor, but I have studied Australian butterflies for years and nothing matched what I imagine could identify this mystery. the only possible answer is something arrived here even further than Australia. I may never know what I saw that day, as I went to grab my net when I spotted it, and by the time I got back it was fluttering away over to the next farm out of my reach. I knew I didn't have a net high enough to catch it as well.

so that really puzzles me to this day and I don't think I will ever know what that mystery butterfly was.

[multicaudata]

Zacatak,

AWESOME mystery sighting! Strange as it may sound, I have had very similar sightings here in California: a large to very large, seemingly plain yellow-brown butterfly that "does not compute". Some may be referable to Speyeria coronis, but at least one was far too big.

Might it be that there's an undiscovered ancient native still hanging on in New Zealand, albeit at very low population levels? Something like this seems to be the case with Papilio cresphontes here in the San Francisco Bay Area. The consensus is that it's probably a permanent resident around here, but in such small numbers that it essentially goes undetected despite being very large and showy. So it seems possible that the same could happen with a Papilio in New Zealand.

I know quite a few butterflies worldwide, but can't think of much that would be very big and "bright yellow with a hint of brown". One that comes to mind is Papilio nobilis from Africa. How did your butterfly fly? Flight action usually says a lot...

[multicaudata]

Paradesia,

We should be able to eliminate or confirm Morpho sp. on the basis of flight action. Did it fly with a pronounced up-and-down bobbing motion? This is very characteristic of Morphos in flight, especially M. polyphemus and presumably the other white species. They fly with a slow bobbing movement which is strangely lumbering and graceful at the same time. A really spectacular display that I've unfortunately only seen in butterfly houses.

[multicaudata]

Bluemoth,

A Faithful Beauty would be a great find for CA, and I would say it's definitely possible that they're breeding, given the abundance of oleander, if they ever have gotten accidentally imported here. Keep looking! Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, there's a very similar situation with Giant Swallowtails (Papilio cresphontes). Last month I caught one near my house in Oakland, the first specimen record for northern California, although there was an unconfirmed sighting of one in nearby Hayward a few years ago. What with my specimen and that sighting, the experts have mostly concluded that the Giant is probably breeding in the Bay Area, but in such low numbers that it goes mostly undetected! The same thing seems to be happening with introduced Cecropia Moths in the LA area: they're breeding residents, but in very low numbers so sightings are extremely few and far between. Might this be a pattern followed by many introduced species?

I would suggest looking for adult Faithful Beauties rather than larvae. Look in dense shady places -- preferably similar to a South Florida "hammock" woodland -- near oleanders. The moths seemed to be very shade oriented when I saw them on Key Largo. The best might be a dense clump of ornamental trees with some oleander in the mix, as well as good nectar flowers in the grove or nearby. Dive in, crash through the tangle, and look for a big blue-black thing fluttering through the shadows. But keep in mind that similar-sized Catocala sp. are probably very common in SoCal urban tree groves this time of year!