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1966
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Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society
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43
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REDISCOVERY OF EUPTYCHIA MITCHELLII (SATYRIDAE)
IN NEW JERSEY
Frank Rutkowski
50 Bayard St., New York, N. Y.
The most recent guidebooks (Ehrlich & Ehrlich, 1961: 91; Forbes, 1960: 169; Klots, 1951: 69-70) either question or ignore old records of Euptychia mitchellii (French) from New Jersey. This is not surprising, because these ambiguous records ("Dover, Woodport," "near Lake Hopatcong") seem to have been based on a single specimen which vanished long ago (Engelhardt, 1936: 110), and the butterfly was not found in New Jersey since the 1890's despite careful search by experienced lepidopterists (McAlpine et al., 1960: 211).
The unpromising history of this species made me feel singularly lucky in mid-July, 1963, when I found a colony of mitchellii in a favorite swamp near Newton, Sussex County, in northern New Jersey. I say "favorite" because this swamp offers a variety of wet habitats, all the way from a little acid bog to an alder thicket. Even more conveniently, it is traced with paths and footbridges, and seems free of poison sumac. In this New Jersey locality the butterflies tend to fly "along very narrowT grassy strips bordering small watercourses," as McAlpine (1936: 221) reported of the Michigan colonies.
Badger (1958: 46) has indicated that mitchellii populations seem prone to yearly fluctuation. During the two seasons that I have watched the New Jersey colony, the population has fluctuated from sparse (1963: about two dozen individuals seen at peak) to almost nonexistent (1964: only five or six stragglers found despite diligent search throughout July). Everyone seems agreed that mitchellii is easy to overlook. Perhaps its specialized habitat, which is repellent to the collector, to say nothing of its brief flight period and inconspicuous appearance, protects it from discovery in many places where it occurs. A sharp-eyed collector must chance to be in the proper spot during the right few days in a year of peak abundance.
Through the courtesy of Dr. F. H. Rindge, I was permitted to compare my material with the mitchellii series (from the type locality at Wakelee, Michigan, and from Streetsboro, Ohio) in the collection of the American Museum of Natural History. My New Jersey specimens, some of which have been deposited in that collection, did not show any consistent difference, nor did they blend into a series of E. areolata septentrionalis (Davis) from its type locality at Lakehurst, Ocean County, in central New Jersey.
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44
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Rutkowski: New Jersey Euptychia found Vol. 20. no. 1
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It appears that the location of the New Jersey colony of mitchellii, in the same part of the state as the old "Dover-Woodport-Lake Hopatcong" records, would make unlikely the possibility suggested by McAlpine et ah (1960: 210) "that the isolated New Jersey records of mitchellii . . . might have been based on specimens of E. a. septentrionalis showing extreme variation in the direction of mitchellii, or even . . . that mitchellii is a well defined subspecies of areolata!' But Newton is a long way from the railroad station at Lakehurst (Klots, 1951: 70), and the distribution of mitchelli is still not clearly understood. It would be interesting to examine specimens from the still-undiscovered colonies in Pennsylvania and central New Jersey which may await the enterprising or the lucky collector.
Literature Cited
Badger, F. S., Jr., 1958. Euptychia mitchellii (Satyridae) in Michigan and Indiana
tamarack bogs. Lepid. News, 12: 41-46. Ehrlich, P. R., & A. H. Ehrlich, 1961. How to Know the Butterflies. Wm. C.
Brown Co., Dubuque, Iowa, 262 pp. Engejlhardt, G. P., 1936. Cissia mitchellii in New Jersey. Bull. Brooklyn Ent. Soc,
31: 110. Forbes, W. T. M., 1960. The Lepidoptera of New York and Neighboring States.
Part IV. Cornell Univ. Agric. Exp. Sta., Mem. 371, 188 pp. Klots, A. B., 1951. A Field Guide to the Butterflies. Houghton-Mifflin Co., Boston,
349 pp. McAlpine, VV. S., 1936. Note in: Proceedings Brooklyn Ent. Soc, March 12, 1936
meeting. Bull. Brooklyn Ent. Soc, 31: 221. McAlpine, W. S., S. P. Hubbell, & T. E. Pliske, 1960. The distribution, habits, and
life history of Euptychia mitchellii (Satyridae). Jour. Lepid. Soc, 14: 209-227.
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SPEYERIA CYBELE (NYMPHALIDAE) AT LIGHT
At 1:15 A.M. on August 5, 1965, I was surprised to find a fresh male Speyeria cybele (Fabricius) actively fluttering against a lighted window of my home in West Acton, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. The temperature was about 60° F., and there were numerous other Lepidoptera, mostly Geometridae such as Itame pustularia Guenee and Semiothisa granitata Guenee, at the window. Since there is a flower garden where this butterfly is a frequent visitor just outside, and since the house and garden are surrounded by fairly heavy pine woods, it is probable that the specimen was disturbed from its evening resting place, rather than coming any great distance to the light.
The only other record I have been able to find of Speyeria cybele at light is that cited in Kimball, Lepidoptera of Florida, 1965, p. 40.
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Charles G. Oliver, West Acton, Massachusetts
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