Hello OMers,
As the OM List's resident entomologist (and a butterfly
collector/photographer at that), I'll offer the following:
As I understand it, male butterflies imbibe animal urine to load up
on sodium. This is used in a creating a "spermatophore", a mass of
sperm and fluid that the male butterfly passes to the female while
mating. The female in turn uses the sodium in this spermatophore for
egg production. In short, the male that passes on the most sodium
during mating ends up with the most eggs produced. One sometimes sees
several to a few dozen butterflies busily "feeding" on damp
gravel--they're simply sodium-loading at a spot where some mammal
urinated. Butterflies will also land on ones skin and imbibe sodium
deposited on the skin by sweating. I shot a half minute of Super 8
movie film on a Hackberry butterfly doing this on my forearm.
Also very attractive to butterflies are carnivore droppings. I did
a butterfly survey of an Army base in Minnesota, and coyote droppings
were excellent collecting spots for several species. Ditto for the
castor/droppings that beavers deposit. I tried "marking my territory"
at the edge of a gravel road on the base several times a day, but
whatever my kidneys were able to excrete couldn't hold a candle to
whatever a coyote, and other unidentified mammals, were able to produce.
Even a crushed toad or frog could be a real attractant.
OM content? If you want to attract butterflies to photograph, find
a source of coyote (or wolf) droppings. Forget human urine. Then use
your Tamron 60-300mm lens on the 65-116 auto extension tube (yes, it
works very well, despite negative postings to such an arrangement in the
last week) and fire away away at the butterflies congregating there.
Dean
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