Watching Washington Butterflies with Bob Pyle: Number Forty Four

In Part 1 of this essay, we looked at the history and importance of occurrence records for butterflies and other elements of natural history, and the importance of keeping them. This time I will go into a little more detail, in hopes it will prove helpful to everyone who wishes to contribute to our store of knowledge and understanding. Keeping good, precise records enables each of us to learn, conserve, and enjoy our beloved butterflies even more.

Here, again, are the basic elements of an acceptable field record;

1. State and county, followed by the precise locality at which the butterfly was encountered.
2. The exact date of the encounter, given as day/month/year.
3. The name of the person responsible for the record.
4. The voucher: traditionally a specimen, but these days more commonly a good, recognizable photograph; or in the absence of a photo, clear notes of observed, diagnostic field marks.
5. Any additional field notes.

Now for some elaboration on each of these categories:

1. Locality: to be useful, this needs to be as precise as possible, so that a field researcher or conservation monitor could locate the very same place. Old records were notoriously bad at this, sometimes giving no more than “Washington Territory” or “Cascades.” Even quite recently we made do with approximations such as “5 mi. E of Hwy 97 on Bickle- ton Hwy.” For many years, Township, Range, and Section coordinates were considered desirable, but these still leave one guessing within a square mile. Nowadays we all have easy access to Longitude and Latitude, so there is no excuse not to give a very precise designation. Even if you don’t have cell service or GPS, or don’t use a smart phone like me, you can still pinpoint the spot on a map such as the DeLorme Atlas, Green Trails, or USGS topo in the field (maps are still essential!) and then fix the lat/long on Google Earth or Google Maps on your home computer. This is of enormous service to the long-suffering records compiler (see below). In short, give a concise but precise verbal description of the site, as well as the lat/long coordinates if at all possible. The record is even more valuable if the elevation is included. A good record should enable future researchers or butterfly monitors to return to the same location with confidence.
2. Dates: Since order of day and month differ by different systems, don’t rely on numerical dates (e.g. Roman numerals for month) but spell or abbreviate the name of the month unequivocally.
3. Names: The name of the observer is very important to include, so that we know who takes responsibility for the data and who may be contacted for further information. These days, lots of people use “handles” or nicknames on social media, and some carry these through for their photo by-lines and records. If this is your choice, for privacy or other reasons, I hope you will consider making your identity available to the records compilers. Anonymity is not generally acceptable as a source of biological data, which is what we are all creating. Also, much of the joy in butterflies lies in the sharing-of knowledge, of enthusiasm, of questions, of discoveries, of photographs, and yes, of records. That sharing is what WBA is all about, and it is at the very root of collaborative science. Gracing our records with our names allows us to take part in the joy of community that the shared love of butterflies can bring.
4. Vouchers: The ultimate voucher specimen is a specimen, which can be turned over and examined from any angle, dissected, examined for its DNA and chemical signatures, and otherwise confirmed and studied. Photographs too can be useful as well as beautiful, though much more limited in what they can convey. More and more they are being accepted as vouchers for records, as are sightings in a few instances. But watchers and photographers must be content that their data will not always be sufficient for a positive ID, and thus as an acceptable record. For a sight record to be accepted, it must be accompanied by detailed notes if there is any question of its visual recognition-just as with birds.
5. Notes: These often include number and gender of individuals sighted, condition. and whether sighted, photographed, collected, or netted and released (s. p, c, n/r). Beyond these basics, feel free to add important plant associations (nectaring on asters, ovipositing on Salix scouleri), weather, predation events, or any other specific field notes that seem relevant or useful.

At this point it should be said that some butterfliers are reluctant to give out their locality information because they are worried about marauding collectors coming along and depredating their subjects. Once upon a time there may have been commercial collectors who might justify such caution. But there are few collectors today, and all of them that I know are committed to the butterflies’ study and conservation. The Lepidopterists’ Society Collecting Guidelines are conservative, and all laws, lists, and protected lands are observed by nearly all members. None of our rarer butterflies stand at any risk whatever from collectors, who are at best extremely poor predators. But several of them are indeed threatened by habitat development, insecticides, warming, and other factors that make it imperative for land managers to know where they occur, so that all suitable measures may be taken for their habitat protection. Considered in this light, secrecy may well help to doom a butterfly colony, rather than save it from imaginary collectors.

And so the ideal record might look something like this:

Papilio rutulus

WA: Wahkiakum Co. Front yard Swede Park, Gray’s River, Jnctn. SR 4 X Loop Rd. Elev. 80 ft. 46.356, -123.581 1 fresh female s. 19 July 2021. R. M. Pyle.

Finally, what should we do with our records? First, there is the matter of storing them. If you are a throwback like me, you may still prefer a handwritten notebook or index cards. But most will use a computer file or spreadsheet, linked to the appropriate photographs by whatever system you choose or devise. The essential thing is that the vouchers and their data not be irretrievably separated! Work it out.

And then what? More and more people are submitting their records to iNaturalist and/or e-Butterfly, which are fine repositories. But here in Washington, we are fortunate to have the Northwest Lepidoptera Survey, the Washington butterflies part of which is coordinated and personally managed by our own WBA Guru-in-Residence, Jonathan P. Pelham, Curator of Lepidoptera at the Burke Museum. Jon has been gathering and amalgamating the state’s butterfly data bank for more than half a century, in partnership with Jon Shepard, myself, and a few other lepidopterists, and later Ann Potter of WDFW. In recent years, he has been working closely with various WBA members to make sure their copious and excellent field records get into the database, and to develop elegant maps from them with Caitlin LaBar. Just as the laboriously entered record-books maintained by John Hinchliff for many years led to the Oregon and Washington Butterfly Atlases, the current efforts will facilitate modern maps that will allow us to visualize the changing ranges of all our butterflies, to find them where they ought to occur or perhaps discover why not, and to care for them as well as possible. You can personally help and honor Jon’s enormous efforts by making sure he gets all of your records, common species or rare.

Conscientious record keeping is the very foundation of natural history and conservation. I hope this little sermon will have convinced those who have not yet begun keeping and submitting records to do so, and those who already do, to do it even better. Or at the very least, to throw another dime at the record machine!

(Editor’s Note: online databases require a unique username and valid email address. Use an email you actually check.

As for user names, you’d be surprised how many people globally have the same name as you-real names are not unique, where these databases have to have a unique identifier for each user-hence the usernames or “handles”.

e-Butterfly requires a real name along with a username. iNaturalist allows for the inclusion of a real name along with the username, so give it yours.)

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