The Butterflies of Iowa

Preface and Acknowledgments

Preface and Acknowledgments This book deals specifically with the butterflies of Iowa. Along with more comprehensive texts and field guides (Glassberg 1999; Opler and Malikul 1998; Pyle 1981; Scott 1986; and Winter 2000), it can be used as a manual for the identification of all butterflies known to occur in Iowa as well as 90 percent of the butterflies in the Plains states. In the first part of the book, we provide information on the natural communities of Iowa, with special attention to butterfly habitat and distribution. We follow this with a history of lepidopteran research in Iowa, from J. A. Allen in 1867 to today’s researchers and enthusiasts. Next we present a chapter on creating a habitat—whether in your backyard or on a larger scale—that will attract and nurture butterflies. Finally, we set out the challenging questions and issues relevant to the study of butterfly populations in Iowa. The second part of this book contains the species accounts, organized by family. Each account includes the common and scientific names for each species as well as its Opler and Warren (2003) number, status in Iowa, adult flight times and number of broods per season, distinguishing features, distribution and habitat, and natural history information , such as behavior and food-plant preferences. Following the species accounts are the illustrations in part III: color photographs of all the butterflies known to occur in Iowa along with detailed range maps and flight diagrams for each species. We end the book with a checklist of Iowa butterflies, collection information specific to the photographs, a glossary, a list of plant names used in the text, references, an index of butterfly names, and the hope that our readers will enjoy and appreciate the butterflies of Iowa as much as we do. John Downey began this study in 1968, when he moved to the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls from southern Illinois. John was joined in 1969 by graduate student Michael C. Christenson, who brought together distributional data on Iowa butterflies for a master’s thesis completed in 1971. Dennis Schlicht continued to add distributional records from that time until 1988, when he was asked to become a coauthor. Dennis was also instrumental in stimulating other avid naturalists in the state, including John Fleckenstein, R. W. Howe, Jeff Nekola, Frank Olsen, Ray Hamilton, David Cuthrell, Tim Orwig, Jerry Selby, John Nehnevaj, Mike Saunders, Doug Nauman, Mark Leoschke, and Ron Harms, to add their expertise and records to this study. Lee Miller contributed to the project from 1975 to 1978. Although Lee left Iowa in 1961, he continued his interest and field observations during annual visits. In recent years Jeff Nekola, Tim Orwig, and Frank Olsen enthusiastically helped us with field records and data. Jeff’s knowledge of plants and ecological associations disclosed many interesting distributional finds in uncollected habitats. Author of the chapter on natural communities of Iowa, Jeff is responsible for parts of the chapter on the history of collecting and for major additions to the species accounts. His habitat records also extend throughout the distribution maps. Jeff’s contributions resulted in his addition as a coauthor in 2000. Before 1988 the only recent information regarding Loess Hills butterflies was collected during the two weeks of the 1980 Loess Hills Lepidoptera Foray. Tim Orwig was our official ambassador of the Loess Hills, extending our knowledge from this brief flight period to the entire growing season. In the process, he has added greatly to our knowledge of many of our rarest species. Tim had the great fortune to be inspired by working at Arthur Lindsey’s Morningside College campus and surely collecting on his pathways. Since 1989 Frank Olsen has undertaken several essential projects to accumulate temporal data on our butterfly fauna. He visited five Linn County nature preserves every three or four days each season and compiled a wealth of data on flight times and brood numbers . Frank, a dedicated worker, has also kept the records up to date in our database. During the spring of 1995 a database of Iowa butterfly records was made reality by the invaluable assistance of twelve of Jeff Nekola’s students from the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay. The approximately 11,000 records entered by Eric Damkot, Katie Steele, Jennifer Smits, Diana Dudley, Gerald Wicker, Charles Pickering, Joe Corson, Neila Bobb, Megan Hoffmann, Lisa Davie, Noel Versch, Rob Bradley, and Jay Mueller (over 500 hours of work!) made possible the up-to-date distribution maps...