BUTTERFLY COLLECTING IN WYOMING, 1952
A visit to Wyoming by car in July-- August 1952 was
devoted to collecting in the following places:
Southeastern Wyoming: eastern Medicine Bow National
Forest, in the Snowy Range, up to approximately 10,500 ft. alt.
(using paved road 130 between Laramie and Saratoga); sagebrush
country, approximately 7,000 ft. alt., between Saratoga and
Encampment, east of paved highway 230; marshes at about the
same elevation between eastern Medicine Bow National Forest and
Northgate, northern Colorado, within 15 miles from the Wyoming
State Line, mainly south of the unpaved road 127; and W.
Medicine Bow National Forest, in the Sierra Madre, using the
abominable local road from Encampment to the Continental Divide
(approximately 9,500 ft. alt.).
Western Wyoming: sagebrush, approximately 6,500 ft. alt.
immediately east of Dubois along the (well-named) Wind River;
western Shoshone and Teton National Forests, following
admirable paved road 26, from Dubois towards Moran over
Togwotee Pass (9,500 ft. alt.); near Moran, on Buffalo River,
approximately 7,000 ft. alt.; traveling through the
construction hell of the city of Jackson, and bearing southeast
along paved 187 to The Rim (7,900 ft. alt.); and, finally,
spending most of August in collecting around the altogether
enchanting little town of Afton (on paved 89, along the Idaho
border), approximately 7,000 ft. alt., mainly in canyons east
of the town, and in various spots of Bridger National Forest,
Southwestern part, along trails up to 9,000 ft. alt.
Most of the material collected has gone to the Cornell
University Museum; the rest to the American Museum of Natural
History and the Museum of Comparative Zoology.
The best hunting grounds proved to be: the Sierra Madre at
about 8,000 ft. alt., where on some forest trails I found among
other things a curious form (? S. secreta dos Passos
& Grey) of Speyeria egleis Bchr flying in numbers
with S. atlantis hesperis Edw. and S.
hydaspepurpurascensti. Edw., a very eastern locality for
the latter; still better were the forests, meadows, and marshes
about Togwotee Pass in the third week of July, where the
generally early emergences of the season were exemplified by
great quantities of Erebia theona ethda Edw. and E.
callias callias Edw. already on the wing; very good, too,
were some of the canyons near Afton.
Here are a few notes on w^hat interested me most in the
field: Boloria, Colias, certain Blues, and migratory or
at least "mobile" species.
Of Boloria I got seven species, of the eight (or
possibly ten) that occur within the region. Plunging into the
forest south of route 130 on the western slopes of the Snowy
Range, I found B. selene tollandensis B & McD. not
uncommon on a small richly flowered marsh at about 8,000 ft.
alt.; also on marshes north of Northgate and on Togwotee Pass.
On July 8, I spent three hours collecting a dozen fresh
specimens of B. eunomia alticola B &: McD., both
sexes, on a tiny very wet marsh along the eastern lip of the
last lake before reaching Snowy Range Pass from the west,
possibly the same spot where Klots had taken it in 1935
(Journ. N. Y. Ent. Soc. 45: p. 326; 1937). I met with
the same form on a marsh near Peacock Lake, Longs Peak,
Colorado, in 1947. Forms of B. Mania Esp. (mostly near
ssp. helena Edw.) were abundant everywhere above 7,500
ft. alt. By the end of July B. freija Thunb. was in
tatters near Togwotee Pass (it had been on the wane in June,
1947, on marshes near Columbine Lodge, Estes Park; and on
He-back River, Tetons, in early July, 1949). Of the beautiful
B. frigga sagata B. & Benj. I took two шш (fresh but
frayed) near Togwotee Pass. Of B. toddi Holland ssp. I
took a very fresh ш in early July in the Snowy Range at 8,000
ft. alt. and a couple of days later, acting upon a hunch, I
visited a remarkably repulsive-looking willow-bog, full of
cowmerds and barbed wire, off route 127, and found there a
largish form of B. toddi very abundant-- in fact, I have
never seen. it as common anywhere in the west; unfortunately,
the specimens, of which I kept a score or so, were mostly
faded-- and very difficult to capture, their idea of sport
being to sail to and fro over the fairly tall sallows that
encompassed the many small circular areas (inhabited only by
Plebeius saepiolus Boisd. and Polites utahensis
Skin.) into which the bog \va.s divided by the shrubs.
Another species I had never seen to be so common was B.
kriembild Strecker which I found in all the willow-bogs
near Togwotee Pass.
In regard to Colias I could not discover what I
wanted-- which was some geographical intergradation between
C. scudderi Reakirt, which I suggest should be
classified as C. palaeno scudderi (Reakirt) (common
everywhere in the Medicine Bow National Forest), and C.
pelidne skinneri Barnes (locally common near Togwotee Pass
and above Afton). I was struck, however, by the identical
ovipositing manners of C. scudderi and C. skinneri 99
which were common in the densest woods of their respective
habitats, laying on Vac-cinium. I found C. meadi
Edw. very common on Snowy Range Pass. It was also present at
timberline near Tog-\votee Pass and east of it, below
timberline, down to 8,000 ft. alt. in willow-bogs, where it was
accompanied by another usually "Hudsonian" species,
Lycaenasnowi Edw., the latter represented by undersized
individuals. (In early July, 1951, near Telluride, Colorado, I
found a colony of healthy Colias meadi and one of very
sluggish Pargus cen-taureae freija Warren in aspen
groves along a canyon at only 8,500 ft. alt.) On a slope near
Togw^otee Pass at timberline I had the pleasure of discovering
a strain of C. meadi with albinic 99. The species was
anything but common there, but of the dozen 99 or so
seen or caught, as many as three were albinic. Of these my wife
and I took two, hers a dull white similar to C. hecla
"pallida," mine slightly tinged with peach (the only other time
I saw a white C. meadi was at the base of Longs Peak,
1947, where the species was extremely abundant).
In 1949 and 1951, when collecting Lycaeides in the
Tetons, all over Jackson Hole, and in the Yellowstone, I had
found that to the north and east L. argyrognomon {idas)
longinusNa.b. turns into L. argyrognomon (Idas)
scudderi Edw. but I had not solved the problem of the L.
melissa strain so prominent in some colonies of L.
argyrognomon longinus (i.e. Black Tail Butte near Jackson).
I had conjectured that hybridization occurs or had occurred
with wandering low elevation L. melissa (the rather
richly marked "Artemisian" L. melissa-- probably in need
of some name) that follows alfalfa along roads as Plebeius
saepiolus does clover. In result of my 1952 quest the
situation appears as follows. The most northern point where
typical L. longinus occurs is the vicinity of Moran,
seldom below 7,000 ft. alt. and up to 11,000 at least. It
spreads south at those altitudes for more than a thousand miles
to the southern tip of Bridger National Forest but not much
further (I have not found it, for instance, around Kemmerer). I
have managed to find one L. melissa, a fresh c?, in
August, 1952, in a dry field near Afton, less than a mile from
the canyon into which both sexes of L. longinus
descended from the woods above. At eastern points of the
Bridger and Shoshone Forests, L. longinus stops
definitely at The Rim, west of Bondurant, and at Brooks Lake
(about 7,500 ft. alt.) some twenty miles west of Dubois. Very
small colonies (seldom more than half-a-dozen specimens were
taken in any one place) of L. melissa were found around
Dubois at 6,500 ft. alt. or so (agricultural areas and the hot
dry hills). A colony of typical (alpine) L. melissa
melissa as described by Edwards, was found just above
timberline in the Sierra Madre. The search for L.
melissa in various windy and barren localities in the
sagebrush zone in mid-July led to the finding of a rather
unexpected Blue. This was Plebeius (Icarida) sbasta
Edw., common in the parched plain at less than 7,000 ft. alt.
between Saratoga and Encampment flying on sandy ground with
Phyciodes mylitta barnesi Skinner, Satyrium
fuliginosa Edw., and Neominois ridingsi Edw. It was
also abundant all over the hot hills at 6,500 ft. alt. around
Dubois where nothing much else occurred. T have not yet been
able to compare my specimens with certain scries in the Museum
of Comparative Zoology, Harvard, but I suggest that this
low-altitude P. shasta is the true P. minnehaha
Scudder while the alpine form which I found in enormous numbers
above timberline in Estes Park (especially, on Twin Sisters)
and which collectors, following Holland's mislead, call
"minnehaha," is really an undescribed race.
As to migratory species observed in Wyoming, 1952, I
distinguish two groups: (1) latitudinal migrants-- moving
within their zones of habitat mainly in a west-east (North
America) or east-west (Europe) direction and capable of
surviving a Canadian Zone winter in this or that stage. Mobile,
individually wondering species of Plebeius and
Colias belong to this group as well as our four
erratically swarming Nympbalis species which hibernate
in the imagi-nal stage. In early August the trails in Bridger
National Forest were covered at every damp spot with millions
of N. californica Boisd. in tippling groups of four
hundred and more, and countless individuals were drifting in a
steady stream along every canyon. It was interesting to find a
few-specimens of the beautiful dark western form of N.
j'album Boisd. & Lee. among the N.
californica near Afton. (2) longitudinal migrants--
moving early in the season from subtropical homes to summer
breeding places in the Nearc-tic region but not hibernating
there in any stage. Vanessa cardui L. is a typical
example. Its movements in the New-World are considerably less
known than in the Old World (in eastern Europe, for instance,
according to my own observations, migratory flights from beyond
the Black Sea hit the south of the Crimea in April, and
females, bleached and tattered, reach the Leningrad region
early in June). In the first week of July, 1952, this species
(offspring mainly) was observed in colossal numbers above
timberline in the Snowy Range over which the first spring flock
had passed on May 28, according to an intelligent ranger. A few
specimens of Euptoieta daudia Cramer were in clover
fields around Afton, western Wyoming, in August. Of Leptotes
marina Reakirt, one ш was observed near Afton in August,
with Apodemia mormo Felder and "Hemiargus"
(Echinargus) isola Reakirt. Both A. mormo and E.
isola plant very isolated small summer colonies on hot
hillsides. The H. isola specimens, which I took also in
Medicine Bow National Forest, are all tiny ones, an obvious
result of seasonal environment, not subspeciation. H.
isola (incidentally, this is not a Latin adjective, but a
fancy name-- an Italian noun originally-- and cannot be turned
into "isolus" to comply with the gender of the generic
name, as done by some writers) belongs to a neotropical group
(my Echinargus) with two other species: E.
martha Dognin, from the Andes, and a new species, described
by me but not named, from Trinidad and Venezuela (see
Psyche, 52: 3-4). Other representatives of neotropical
groups (Graphium marcellus Cramer, "Strymon"
melinus Hubner, Pyrgus communis Grote,
Epar-gyreus clarus Cramer-- to name the most obvious
ones) have established themselves in the Nearctic more securely
than H. isola. Among the migratory Pierids, the
following were observed: single specimens of Nathalis
iole Boisd. all over Wyoming; one worn ш of Pboebis
eubule L. in the Sierra Madre (Battle Lake), July 9; one
worn ш of Eurema mexicana Boisd., between Cheyenne and
Laramie (and a worn + near Ogallala, Neb.), first week of July.
The Lepidopterists' News,
Vol. 7, July 26, 1953, pp. 49-52.
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