How lovely to go for a walk accompanied by a magical fluttering of yellowish-white butterflies. It is enough to make anyone feel like a Disney princess, or like Bambi exploring a technicolor forest.
In
other years there have sometimes been sudden butterfly hatchings, but I have
never seen so many, or for so long. It seems that when the heavy November rains
broke our six month drought and trees were able to grow new leaves, that in
turn created unusually favorable conditions for butterfly eggs to develop into caterpillars
that could grow and thrive and produce an abundance of butterflies.
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| Cluster of Great Southern White butterflies in Fish Bay Photo Gail Karlsson |
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Close-up of Great Southern White on a branch
Photo Gail Karlsson |
The
Great Southern Whites are not special to the Virgin Islands. They are also common
throughout the southern United States, South America and the Caribbean. Other
Caribbean islands have reported mass hatchings this season as well.
In
the Virgin Islands, the Great Southern Whites tend to use the numerous, local limber
caper trees as hosts. The females attach clusters of about 20 tiny
torpedo-shaped eggs to the leaves of the tree – potentially producing up to 500
eggs each. When conditions are right, the eggs develop into caterpillars with
black spots, dark hairs, and yellow stripes running lengthwise along their
backs - much smaller than the well-known frangipani caterpillar. After two or
three weeks of feeding on leaves, the caterpillar will transform into a chrysalis
with a hard shell, usually hanging inconspicuously on the tree. After a week or
so the chrysalis bursts open and the butterfly emerges. All in all, it is an
amazingly complex process.
Butterflies
mostly suck nectar from flowers, using a long proboscis that they can extend
and insert into the flowers. They are important pollinators for many plants,
transferring pollen from one flower to another as they flit about.
The Great Southern Whites also seem to be social drinkers. I have often seen them gathering in groups along on our dirt road, apparently getting together to drink and draw minerals from the wet spots – an activity known as ‘puddling’.
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| Great Southern Whites puddling in the dirt road Photo Gail Karlsson
Unfortunately
these butterflies have a short life span. While they are here, they bring great joy to people on St. John, and we can hope for another big
batch of them again – if all the eggs these ones lay are able to hatch, and
there are enough leaves for the hungry caterpillars to eat, as well as
nectar-filled flowers for the next generation of emerging butterflies.
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