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A medium-sized, orange and brown butterfly sits on a rock in a watering tray in early spring.
Photo Credit:
Kathy Wiederholt
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Beautiful Insects at CREC Orchard

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I’m working on reports, especially for our haskap trials, but I thought I’d share some warm weather butterfly and moth pictures that I took this past year. I love working with plants, especially fruit plants, but I think my overall passion is “Biology”: the study of life. The interaction of living critters (plants, animals (that’s us-humans), insects, fungi, bacteria, viruses (ok, these aren’t living)) and their environment is completely fascinating to me.

There are a lot of opportunities these days to become ‘citizen scientists’ and kids will probably LOVE to take part in this. Here are some that I use: www.butterfliesandmoths.org , www.iNaturalist.org (and app) and www.bumblebeewatch.org (and app).

Some other helpful sites to identify butterflies and moths are www.butterflyidentification.org and https://www.ag.ndsu.edu/publications/lawns-gardens-trees/butterfly-gardening-in-north-dakota/e1266.pdf where you can print the Butterflies of North Dakota ID pages from the PDF.

A medium-sized moth hovers near purple flowers, with a furry yellow and brown-banded body and clear wings edged in dark color.
Photo Credit:
Kathy Wiederholt
July 19. Snowberry Clearwing moth
A medium-sized, dull grey-brown butterfly feeds on purple flowers, with two black spots with white centers, ringed in yellow on its forewings.
Photo Credit:
Kathy Wiederholt
July 22. Common Wood Nymph butterfly.
A large green caterpillar, as thick as a finger, rests on a stick. It has white vertical lines, colorful dots, and sparse hairs on some dots.
Photo Credit:
Kathy Wiederholt
July 31. Polyphemus moth caterpillar.
A small, dull grey-brown butterfly feeds on purple flowers, with a white spot on each lower wing and a light yellow area on each upper wing.
Photo Credit:
Kathy Wiederholt
August 4. Silver Spotted Skipper butterfly.
A very large tan caterpillar crawls on a hand, longer than a pinky and almost as thick. It has darker specks and three angled white spots on each segment.
Photo Credit:
Kathy Wiederholt
Sept 4: Achemon sphinx moth caterpillar, appearing in two forms—green and brown.
Two pictures of Melissa Blue butterflies: Female (left) is brown with orange edges; Male (right) is bright blue-purple. Both have grey undersides with black and orange spots.
Photo Credit:
Kathy Wiederholt
September 8. Female (L), male (R) Melissa Blue butterflies.
Five large, brightly colored caterpillars rest on a stick. Black with white spots, red or yellow dots, red tails, and feet—spectacular!
Photo Credit:
Kathy Wiederholt
September 8. Spurge Hawkmoth caterpillars.
A small black and white butterfly rests on grass. It has a fuzzy, light blue body.
Photo Credit:
Kathy Wiederholt
September 8. Common Checkered Skipper.

Finally, you can always learn more about the habitat needed to conserve butterflies and moths at https://xerces.org/endangered-species/butterflies

Kathy Wiederholt
Fruit Project Manager
Kathy.Wiederholt@ndsu.edu