On the Track of the Northern Butterfly

As we climbed a hill in the Goldstream Valley, Ken Philip and I flushed a butterfly that was sunning itself on warm rocks. The dark brown butterfly, which was as big as a man's palm, bobbed and weaved in the breeze. Without warning, Philip swung the wooden handle of his net and bagged the bug with a two-handed backhand.

Philip reached inside the net and pulled out a creature some people don't even know exists in Alaska. He held between his fingers one of Alaska's 83 species of butterfly, an insect Philip knows better than anyone in the state.

Philip is easy to find around Fairbanks. He drives a blue pickup with the word "INSECT" on faded Alaska plates. Sticking to the door is a sign that hints at the vehicle's mission: "Alaska Lepidoptera Survey."

Lepidoptera is the insect order that includes butterflies and moths. Philip has devoted much of his life to the pursuit of these delicate bugs in Alaska and the far north, simply because he enjoys the work. Earning his living as a radio astronomer tracking bursts of space noise in Alaska in the 1960s, Philip eventually retired and devoted himself to the pursuit of far northern butterflies and moths. He has since discovered several new species, and another entomologist even named a moth-Grammia philipiana-after Philip. More impressive still is his collection of northern butterflies. On steel pins, he has suspended more than 25,000 butterflies and moths like tiny works of art within wooden drawers. Philip has tucked 75,000 more specimens in envelopes and stowed them neatly. When the day comes that the 68-year old Philip is no longer able to chase butterflies (or, in his words, "the instant I drop dead") the Smithsonian Institution will assume possession of his collection.

On the April day I took a walk with Philip, he held the butterfly known as a mourning cloak between his fingers, then pinched its thorax to paralyze its flight muscles. After folding its wings back, Philip placed the mourning cloak in a tiny envelope, which he then placed in a metal Sucrets box. He tucked the Sucrets box in the pocket of his pants and we walked on.

I was surprised to see a butterfly rather than a caterpillar so early in the spring, but Philip explained that the mourning cloak had spent the winter as a butterfly, probably insulated by snow on the south-facing slope where we stood. Six species of Alaska butterfly hibernate as adults, flitting around in springtime as soon as the temperature reaches about 50 degrees F.

Philip has traveled throughout the Arctic, hitching rides when he can to remote parcels of Alaska and Canada. One of the butterfly facts Philip finds most fascinating is that one half of the northern species-41 varieties-live on Alaska's north slope. In such a harsh environment-with almost constant wind, few trees, and short summers-some butterflies have adapted an ability to live longer lives by remaining caterpillars for more than one summer.

"If it's a cold, cloudy summer, they can skip it," Philip said.

The normal lifespan of a butterfly is about one year. Adults such as the mourning cloak Philip caught will mate in spring, lay eggs on a willow twig, and die. In a few weeks, caterpillars will hatch and feed on willows, gorging themselves until they construct a chrysalis, a smooth cocoon in which to transform from caterpillar to butterfly. The next generation of butterflies emerges in early August.

This summer, Philip plans to drive his lepidoptera lorry south to Haines, Alaska, where he will attempt to chase down a butterfly that has somehow eluded his net in the past 35 years.