Common Name: Common Sooty-Wing
Perhaps we should change the
common name to "The Formerly-Common Sooty Wing," since this little
glossy-black butterfly with a white "face" is now teetering on the
edge of regional extinction. On our transect,
it was formerly found at all the low-elevation sites but as of 2005 was still
present only in West Sacramento. As recently as a decade before this was a
"junk species,"
breeding in vegetable gardens and vacant lots on weedy
Pigweeds (genus
Amaranthus) and occasionally on the closely-related Cockscomb in flower
gardens. There are plenty of hosts around - perhaps more than ever - but P.
catullus has disappeared. The fat, apple-green larva
with a black head and cervical shield was easily located in its rolled-leaf
nest.
Multiple broods, March-October.
Males "fly a beat" along roadsides with a very characteristic zigzag
flight near the ground. Both sexes visit low flowers such as Lippia and Heliotrope
and, in lawns, clovers and small yellow-flowered Oxalis.
The collapse of this species and
of the Large Marble (Euchloe ausonides) leaves butterfly biologists
absolutely baffled. What is going on?