Finally Caught the Elusive Tiger Swallowtails at Albany Hill

Today we caught three Western Tiger Swallowtails (Papilio rutulus) for the first time at Albany Hill (Albany, CA) using our handy new butterfly net but they turned out all to be males!

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If you have been keeping up with our other posts about the Western Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio rutulus), you'll probably know that we have been chasing this particular species this entire year at various locations in an attempt to catch a live female to lay some eggs for us (See Lepidoptera Rearing Guide for more information). As a recap, exactly two weeks ago on 6/27 when we went to Albany Hill, we saw at least two of the swallowtails flying around the bottom of the mountain right by Cerrito Creek, their natural riparian corridor habitat, but weren't able to catch any since we didn't have a net. Two days ago on 7/9 when we went down to Tilden we had a net but still weren't able to catch the three or four of them we saw along the trail because they were flying too high. 

This afternoon around 2 PM we decided to go back to Albany Hill, this time equipped with the new net. For some reason, in the past we had only really seen a lot of Western Tigers in May and June even though they are supposed to be bivoltine or multivoltine in our region so we weren't too sure if we would see any today as we had two weeks ago. And, indeed, when we first stepped on to the scene, there was nothing. Not even little butterflies like Common Buckeyes (Junonia coenia), Cabbage Whites (Pieris rapae), or Painted Ladies (Vanessa cardui) along the dry grasses. 

But within half an hour of walking a around the trail near the creek where we had seen the Western Tigers last time, we saw one. It didn't look particularly big, but we were certain that it was the right yellow swallowtail and we chased after it excitedly from one side of the trail to another. Finally, after failing several time to capture it, we succeeded in capturing it. Immediately after snagging it in the net, we grabbed its abdomen brutally, needing to know whether the butterfly we had finally gotten was an egg bearing female or a useless male. It turned out to be the latter -- a beautiful male in mint condition (we think it must of very recently emerged and was virgin) but completely useless for providing us with eggs. We weren't terribly surprised by this since males are usually smaller than females and it had been small, but it was disappointing nonetheless.

Soon after catching our first Western Tiger, we spotted at least two more in the same area. We chased each one for a while but eventually got them one after another within a short amount of time. They both also turned out to be males. The second butterfly was more beat up than the first one we caught and the third, largest one was even more beat up than the second -- it was losing both tails and so many scales that the yellow areas looked almost white and we could have mistaken it for the rare Pale Swallowtail (Papilio eurymedon). When we caught the first one we thought it might have just been bad luck that it was a male but after catching three males, a coincidence was not likely. We concluded that most of the butterflies around this area were simply males patrolling the mountainside for newly emerged females (yes, we weren't the only one that day looking for those ever so elusive females!). They were just flying about, scanning the area and not doing much else -- typical male behavior in any butterfly. 

When we were just about to leave, we saw another Western Tiger that we had missed earlier fly out of nowhere. It was much faster than the other ones and we couldn't catch it to save our life. It would be incredibly tragic if that had been the only female that day! At any rate, we are more determined than ever to come back and keep catching more in hopes that we do somehow manage to get a female. As long as we show up on the scene, the chance of us catching more is guaranteed with our trusty new net, as long as we are patient enough. 

- Brian