northeast-flora-and-fauna

A couple weeks ago while talking about a Hackberry Emperor butterfly, I wanted to post a link to my previous post about its relative, the Tawny Emperor . Unfortunately I didn't have one [1], so I'm going to remedy that on Throwback Thursday with a picture from 2.5 years ago. You probably shouldn't feel all that deprived of seeing the Tawny Emperor; it's quite similar to its Hackberry Emperor cousin. In contrast to the Hackberry Emperors I've seen, the Tawny Emperor's coloring is more of a brownish-orange (aka tawny) compared to the brownish-gray of many Hackberry Emperors. But this isn't the best way to ID them since apparently some Hackberry Emperors have the brighter coloring of the Tawnies; a better way is that if the top of the front wing contains 1-2 eyespots (something I talked about here ) then you've got a Hackberry Emperor. As wee little lads and lasses (aka caterpillars) both these emperors like to eat (surpringly): Hackberry Trees  [2]. As a...

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 .

Here's a Hackberry Emperor Butterfly , one of our brush-footed/four-footed butterflies . This is a big, visually diverse butterfly family that includes many I've discussed before, like the Eastern Comma, Question Mark, Red Admiral, and Monarch. I will confess that I usually don't get a good look at their feet, so their tendency to walk on only 4 of their legs and to have fuzzy legs doesn't typically help me with an ID. But if you've got one in your hand, it could be a good clue. Unlike more versatile butterflies like the Red Admiral, the Hackberry Emperor uses only the Hackberry Tree as a host plant during its caterpillar stage. It's not uncommon for butterflies and moths to be named after their host plants; the Spicebush Swallowtail, Pipevine Swallowtail, and Snowberry Clearwing also come to mind. July 25 at Duke Farms There is a relative to the Hackberry Emperor that looks similar, the Tawny Emperor. Though the colors aren't exactly the same, I've men...