Regina Johnson and I scouted a site for a possible WBA field trip along the summit of Crystal Mountain near Mt. Rainier, at 6,800 ft., and butterflies were abundant on this Labor Day weekend. We took the gondola up through the fog to the summit arriving at 10:00am. The temperature was in the high 50s. Just as we arrived the fog briefly opened to show a stunning view of Mt. Rainier nestled in the cloud bank. We walked the ridgetop trail north for a little over a mile seeing a few butterflies and nice flowers along the way. Yarrow, subalpine daisy, aster and pearly everlasting were the primary nectar sources, but other flowers put in an occasional appearances. After 1:00 or so the fog lifted to full sun and the butterflies emerged in large numbers. The temperature was in the low 60s when we left.

We were surprised to find both the Mountain Parnassian and Clodius Parnassian on opposite sides of the trail at the same moment. It was a great opportunity to view the differences between these two species in the field. The Mountain is chalky white to slightly transparent, has “barbershop pole” black and white antennae, bold black bars (often rounded) in the fore wing cells, and may have red spots on both the fore and hind wings. The Clodius is more translucent like rice paper along the outer edge of the fore wings, has solid black antennae, gray rectangular bars in the fore wing cells, and will only have red spots on the hind wings. The red spotting was not very apparent on either of these late season individuals. We were fortunate that both of these species decided to nectar at just that point in time to create a teaching  moment for us.

An additional note of interest is that a waxy pouch, or “chastity belt”, is deposited by the males of this species during mating. In most cases this prevents other males from passing their sperm to the females and guarantees that only the male’s genes from the first mating will be passed on to the eggs.

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