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It’s that beautiful time of year again – when the air fills with the majestic flittering and fluttering of yellow butterflies!
I first noticed it last Saturday (September 13th). When sitting outside of Crema in La Romana I spotted a swarm of yellow butterflies dancing across the street. And now I am seeing them everywhere! They’re dancing in the breeze all across Casa de Campo and are especially abundant in Altos de Chavón where they seem to love the tree in the Chavón Plaza.
What are they?
The name of this mysterious yellow butterfly is Statira Sulphur, or Aphrissa statira, and it is a species of lepidoptera in the family Pieridae. This species of butterfly is native to the Dominican Republic and can be found across the Americas from Texas and Florida down to Argentina.
The male and female butterfly of the Statira Sulphur look differently. The male Statira Sulphur is yellow and greenish yellow, while the female is a brighter yellow with a black spot, black wing margins and a black apex. We not sure why, but the majority of the butterflies we are currently seeing are male, although I have spotted 1 or 2 bright yellow females in the crowd!
The Statira Sulphur like to eat the nectar of red-colored plants, which would explain why there are so many on the tree in the Chavón Plaza – it is currently filled with a type of small red berries.
So what are they doing?
Although it is difficult to say exactly what is going on, the Statira Sulphur is strongly migratory in behaviour- flying upriver in the latter part of the dry season, and downriver towards the sea in the wet season.
This suggests that as it has been raining a lot recently here in the Dominican Republic, the Statira Sulphur is migrating downriver towards the sea, which would explain why we are suddenly seeing so many in Altos de Chavón and La Romana.
Click here to read more about butterflies commonly seen in the Dominican Republic.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphrissa_statira
http://www.learnaboutbutterflies.com/Amazon%20-%20Aphrissa%20statira.htm