In August I returned to the Southwestern Research Station (SWRS) in anticipation of the bountiful butterfly numbers I found the year before. In my second day I found one Chlosyne lacinia so I was optimistic for the rest of the month.
That same day I also happened upon a praying mantis chowing down on a Vanessa carduii (Painted Lady).
However, as the days and soon weeks went by I was finding less Chlosyne than I did in Costa Rica. I had only found less than 5 in all after two weeks. The bugs just weren’t flying! So, in the meantime I did other things such as help dig out ant colonies for the Gordon lab (yes, I am proudly holding a spoon).
I also checked out some of the nearby sites like the crazy geological oddity that is the Chiricahua National Monument.
There were also a ton of snakes... and basically all of them were poisonous... and big. I'm a bit paranoid about snakes (though I do like them) but I felt like this paranoia was warranted given my average of about a snake a day out in the field. By the way, I am convinced the density of poisonous snakes in southern Arizona/New Mexico far exceeds that of Costa Rica.
Can't forget the rattlesnake that took up residence in MY residence!
Eventually I changed plans and started driving all over southern Arizona and New Mexico in search of larvae. This approach turned out productive and I found lots of larvae.
I found and collected over a hundred larvae in all. Then I put them in the lab growth chamber. Actually, then I went home for about a week. When I returned the larvae were adults! Then I could run my experiments with them.
When all was said and done I collected all the data I needed. Really, that’s all you can ask for from endeavors such as these.