Hackberry Emperor

What outranks a Monarch butterfly? Perhaps an emperor, like this Hackberry Emperor? We don't see a lot of emperors around here, though this is the more common species of our emperors; I see its (similar-looking) Tawny Emperor even less.

As you might expect given their name, the Hackberry Emperor uses hackberry trees like our local Common Hackberry [1] as its host plants. (Their Tawny Emperor cousins also use these trees as hosts.) Unlike many native species, both emperor species appear to be increasing in numbers a bit. Presumably this means we have more hackberry trees than we used to; butterfly populations frequently correlate to the population of their host plants.

August 5, 2021 at Duke Farms
Photo 148951639, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

[1] Although hackberries are in the elm family, they don't appear to be susceptible to the devastating Dutch Elm Disease.

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