Here are some of the highlights and what they mean for the future of Pinery’s mottled duskywings.
One incredibly important sighting was made shortly after I arrived at the park in May: a mottled duskywing was found! It was photographed by a park visitor and posted to iNaturalist, and the sighting was quickly brought to our attention. Not only was it exciting to see the first mottled duskywing of the year, but it also meant that the butterflies had survived the winter – or more accurately, their caterpillars had. Most people are familiar with the monarch butterfly, and its massive yearly migration to escape the winter cold. Such journeys are not particularly common among butterflies, however. Many species, mottled duskywings included, stay in Canada year-round, and have different strategies for surviving through the winter. In the case of our duskywings, the caterpillars must eat until they are nearly ready to form a chrysalis. From there, they create a cozy nest of leaves and silk to keep them safe from the cold, and undergo a process known as diapause. This is essentially the insect equivalent to hibernation, and it allows the caterpillars to slow their metabolism enough to survive until spring.
As this was the first time mottled duskywings had spent a winter in this part of Ontario in over a decade, nobody knew for sure if any of them would survive. But sure enough, more and more mottled duskywing butterflies began to appear throughout the park.
This development led to an exciting milestone for some of my teammates and me, as well. Some of us, myself included, are new to the project, and had never had the opportunity to handle mottled duskywing before. Soon after we arrived, all of us were able to catch and mark our first mottled duskywing – or at least, for our more experienced cohorts, their first of the year. It’s always incredibly exciting getting to handle and see wild insects up close, and marking these butterflies helps us to estimate the size of the population at the park.
