Photo: Eastern Tailed-blue, Judy Gallagher
During the pandemic we’ve had to cancel our regular wildlife surveys but some long-time participants are going out individually on an ad hoc basis to continue collecting data. Judy Gallagher is one of those folks who also captures photos of what she sees, in particular the less common species. Here are two observations from her most recent survey.
Here is one of our smaller butterflies, the Eastern Tailed-blue, dining on horse poop at Meadowood. This behavior is called puddling, and it's done because butterflies' more common food, nectar from flowers, doesn't contain all the nutrients they need. Butterflies can be seen sucking up nitrogen and sodium rich fluids from soil, poop and sometimes even carrion.
Eastern Taliled-blue, Judy Gallagher
And in case you're wondering why this grayish-white butterfly is called a "blue” – when it opens its wings you can see the startlingly blue wing uppersides.
Eastern Taliled-blue, Judy Gallagher
Predators know that butterflies like poop. This tiny Jumping Spider blends in quite well against the poop and would love to make a meal of the much larger Eastern Tailed-blue. Jumping Spiders have eight eyes. The big eye pair picks up color and detail. The foremost smaller set of eyes picks up motion, the rearmost set of eyes allows the spider to see what's behind it, and scientists still don't know the function of the other eye pair. All in all, Jumping Spiders have excellent vision and are impressive predators. This spider did not catch the butterfly while I was watching though.
Jumping Spider, Judy Gallagher