Butterflights

Sitting in the meadow my young-at-heart companion pointed to the bright creature winging by. "A flutter-by!"

Monarch of the realm

We discovered that blooming goldenrod is a fine place to find these late summer beauties.

Common Ringlet, of the family Nymphalidae

We took pictures, and looked up butterfly names. The butterflies come from different families. This made sense, because we come from different families too.

American Lady, Nymphalidae

Family names flew around in our imaginations. Nymphalidae sounded like dancers in a Russian ballet.

Clouded Sulphur, Pieridae

When we pronounced all the letters those names came smiling out like music.

Pink-edged Sulphur, Pieridae

We found out that the Pierides were the nine daughters of King Pierus who defied the Muses in a contest of song. In defeat they were turned into birds, which didn't seem like a loss.

Eastern Tailed-Blue, Lycaenidae

We mused on the world of early naturalists who wrote in Latin and Greek. They were developing modern systems of classification to expand ancient knowledge. They laced their scientific nomenclature with classical imagery. 

American Copper, Lycaenidae

We pictured those robust insect collectors with knapsacks and nets and walking sticks clambering out of canoes, sliding down rocky screes, chasing insect novelties. We pictured desiccated academics adding desiccated specimens to desiccated collections. We savored all of their dreams of discovery and of  name-giving at the frontier of knowledge.

Red-banded Hairstreak, Lycaenidae

Name-giving puts language into life, and vice versa. It makes things memorable for people. Naturally the name-givers would sanctify both their systematics, and each newly added species, by turning to ancient sources for names. Perhaps they were able to honor a colleague.

Over the centuries some of the meaning has become obscure, but classical names still taste like rooted romance. We liked saying  Lycaenidae over and over until it slid easily over our tongues. 

Peck's Skipper, Hesperiidae

When it came to the Skipper family our imaginations fluttered. Hesperiidae refers to nymphs in charge of the golden light of sunsets. ² We learned that our modestly colored local Skippers have ravishing relatives in other parts of the world.

 Our time meandering through internet references was as delightful as the hours afield. We wanted to offer you a couple of delicious sidetracks as footnotes to our story.

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 1. The etymology of the genus Lycaena has vague and different interpretations. Some maintain that it comes from Lycia, an epithet of the goddess Diana, some from lukaina = she-wolf, others from Lukaios or Lycaeus of Lyceus, the name given to some gods worshipped on the mount Lycaeum in the old Arcadia. Still others from Lykaon, king of Arcadia or from Lukeion, a gymnastics school of old Athens where the mastery of the gymnasts was said to imitate the frantic flight of this butterfly.

Monaco Nature Encyclopedia (online) by Dr. Gianfranco Colombo, trans. Mario Beltramini

2. Hesperiidae [means] “land of the evening” and was applied to Italy by Aeneas, the Trojan prince who founded Rome in Virgil’s Aeneid. Aeneas, as a Trojan, had to travel west towards the evening or setting sun to reach Italy. The genus Hesperia was first created in 1793 by Johan Fabricius (1745-1808) when Hesperia comma (our own Common Branded Skipper) was moved by Fabricius from the genus Papilio (the genus into which Linnaeus (1707-1778) placed all butterflies and skippers) to this newly created genus. The type locality of Hesperia comma, (meaning the place from which the specimen originally described by Linnaeus was from) is Sweden. Why, then, would Fabricius have named the genus for a classical word meaning Italy? The answer, I believe, lies in the evening sky. In Greek mythology, the three Hesperides, sisters named Hespere, (“evening”), Aegle (“dazzling light”) and Erytheis (“Crimson”) lived in the far west in the apple orchard of Hera. I believe Fabricius used the name Hesperia as a genus for those dazzling, golden-hued skippers that were clad in the colors of an evening sunset – reddish-orange and yellow. Certainly the skippers in the genus now comprising Hesperia, including Common Branded Skipper, fit that description.

"Taxonomists Just Wanna Have Fun: All in the (Sub) Family," Harry Zirlin, American Butterflies, Vol 14 No 3/4, Fall/Winter 2006.