Subject: Red Spotted Purple on Butterfly Bush
Geographic location of the bug: Campbell, Ohio
Date: 07/20/2022
Time: 11:40 AM EDT
Gentle Readers,
Daniel is thrilled to be spending an entire summer in the yard where he grew up for the first time since the late 1970s, and he is well aware of changes that have occurred in that time. Species that were once quite common are now quite scarce and species that were once very rare are being sighted with frequency. Daniel first spotted what he believed to be a Red Spotted Purple in early May but he did not make a sighting with certainty until July 17 when he recorded a sighting in the Butterflies & Skippers of Ohio Field Guide on July 17. Two days later he got an excellent image of what many consider to be the most beautiful North American butterfly nectaring from a Butterfly Bush that Daniel purchased and planted in July 2020, one of the first plants he introduced to the garden that he inherited.
Daniel suspects that an Albus Poplar tree that was planted after Daniel moved away in 1979 and that grew to tremendous height before it fell in a May wind storm might be the food source for the caterpillars of the Red Spotted Purple as the Viceroys that are also present in the garden. Though they are visually quite different, the Red Spotted Purple and the Viceroy are members of the same genus.
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