Hard Times, Conservation and Etymology

© Steven J. Cary, January 31, 2025

Butterflies are appreciated at many levels of understanding and consciousness. The timely arrival of the three stories below is proof of that. Have you seen your first butterfly of the year? Up north here, winter is hard time for butterflies. Read Mike Toliver’s story about how the Question Mark, seen in Los Alamos just a few days ago, deals with winter. Then be uplifted by Simon Doneski’s very timely butterfly conservation piece. It begins almost as a eulogy for the Sacramento Mountains Checkerspot, but in that tragedy he finds inspiration and motivation that is refreshing and timely given the way our planet is trending. Finally, we have addressed the topic of butterfly names in a couple of recent posts, so it is fitting that we wrap up this post with Krista Rudd’s well-researched and fascinating etymological study of the word “butterfly” itself. Keep reading . . . spring will be upon us before you know it.

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“Hard times come again no more,” by Mike Toliver. While browsing through iNaturalist the other day, seeing what you all are finding in these early days of 2025, I found images of the Question Mark by Mike Smith (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/259931765) flitting around over snow in Los Alamos. In his submittal to BAMONA, Mike reported: “In the dead leaves and flying poorly around the landscape shrubs. Right in front of the YMCA in Los Alamos . . . landing on snow banks. Very unusual to find any butterfly in January in Los Alamos. Temp was in the high 40s though it has been below freezing the past 4 days.”

This is a great find, and it highlights an interesting adaptation by several “brushfoots” (Nymphalidae). Species like the Question Mark have evolved an ability to overwinter (hibernate or diapause) as adults by fattening up (like bears) and including “antifreeze” in their blood (technically, hemolymph, as true blood occurs in closed circulatory systems and butterflies have an open system). This gives these critters a head start; when the weather warms up, they can begin finding mates and laying eggs before other butterflies. Among the NM butterflies that hibernate/diapause as adults, many of the “anglewings (Polygonia)” including the Question Mark, Satyr Comma and Hoary Comma do this, as well as Mourning Cloak, California Tortoiseshell, and some of the Ladies. Overwintering as specially adapted adults is one of several strategies critters have evolved to get through hard times.

A particularly interesting adaptation for us NM butterfliers is aestivation (=estivation). When conditions become unfavorable (in NM often hot and dry), some butterflies in various life stages enter this state of suspended animation. I once reared a number of Sandia (New Mexican) hairstreaks and found a few pupae that didn’t emerge as expected. I left them alone, and lo and behold, a couple of years passed, and adults emerged! The pupae had entered aestivation and waited until conditions became favorable again to pop out. Some adults (the Question Mark included!) and larval butterflies do this as well.

If times are hard where you’re at, another option besides sleeping through it is to leave (migrate). The most famous example of this is the Monarch, but migration is probably under-studied in other butterflies. The Painted Lady is one of the few that has been studied, both here and in the Old World. But other brushfoots, including some of the hibernators, do this as well as butterflies in some other families (Pieridae – whites and sulfurs – are particularly prominent in this regard). Migration doesn’t have to involve a journey of hundreds or thousands of miles. Hunters know this well, as elk and deer leave the high country in winter and move to lower altitudes which might not have as severe conditions as the high altitudes. Some butterflies adopt a similar approach, including the Question Mark and Milbert’s Tortoiseshell.

Question Marks have several arrows in their quivers to deal with harsh conditions; keep an eye out for them as we approach Spring!

[Thank you Mike S. and Mike T.]

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Learning from the Checkerspot, by Simon Doneski. The Sacramento Mountains Checkerspot Butterfly (Euphydryas anicia cloudcrofti) used to be a veritable symbol of the village of Cloudcroft. Drive through town and you could see walls adorned with brightly painted murals celebrating the Checkerspot. Local students would go out and plant host plants for the butterfly every year and if you wanted to see one yourself all you needed to do was drive to one of the many meadows just outside of Cloudcroft to see them dancing among the wildflowers.

Today, however, those meadows are essentially empty of Checkerspots. Once frequently seen, they are now nearly gone, confined to just two small, isolated patches of habitat where at last count only thirteen individuals were found. Even there, survival is tenuous and intensive human intervention has tried to keep this butterfly from disappearing forever. In 2022 two males and two females were brought into captivity at the Albuquerque BioPark in a last-ditch effort to try to save this butterfly. However, this effort has been difficult and despite more extensive surveying and restoration efforts, the Checkerspot continues to decline. Even though our hands are all over this butterfly it is still slipping through our grasp.

Many conservationists struggle to remain hopeful in an uncertain age of looming mass extinctions, in a world where losing battles are the ones most likely to be fought. Unfortunately, this checkerspot is not an isolated example of potential extinctions happening before our very eyes. It is just one of a multitude of butterflies in our state facing a potentially similar fate and is just one of 37 butterflies listed as being of Greatest Conservation Need by the State of New Mexico. As conservationists, including myself, try desperately to bring this butterfly back from the brink of extinction, the Sacramento Mountains Checkerspot serves as an important monument and lesson. How do conservationists stay hopeful despite knowing that they are fighting losing battles and what can the Sacramento Mountains Checkerspot teach us before it disappears?

If the Checkerspot has taught me anything it is that, despite the advance warning of its decline, we simply weren’t ready for an endangered insect. In 2023 upon its federal listing as Endangered, the Sacramento Mountains Checkerspot became the first protected insect in our state and it was immediately evident that the situation would be challenging. Insect conservation is a new and evolving discipline requiring resources and highly specialized expertise. New Mexico, not previously needing this expertise, has a gap in this expertise partly as a result of a statutory situation. The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish is responsible for protection of all “wildlife” in the state. However, in New Mexico, insects are not included in the statutory definition of “wildlife,” and thus all insects cannot legally be protected by Game and Fish unless the definition is changed.

As a result, the State of New Mexico has not able to protect or help its insects. Any protections for insects have had to come from the federal government, but the federal listing process is slow and can be politically influenced. At a time when species are declining faster than ever, New Mexico Game and Fish is not empowered to help and the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service is more overworked and understaffed than ever. This results in a perfect storm of bureaucracy which makes for agonizing viewing for those of us who care enough to pay attention. We know what needs to be done, but there simply aren’t the resources or the political will to act with the necessary urgency. The result is that we are likely to watch the Checkerspot and any number of other endangered insects go extinct in front of our eyes.

Regardless of what the Checkerspot’s future may hold, it has dramatically paved the way for the rest of New Mexico’s rare insects and its legacy will be felt for a long time. Listing of the Checkerspot opened the floodgates for a flow of expertise and work in the state on endangered insects and in 2024 the Nokomis Silverspot butterfly (Argynnis nokomis nokomis) joined the Checkerspot as the second federally protected insect in New Mexico. Additionally, for the first time, New Mexico Game and Fish included 93 insects as being of greatest conservation need within its State Wildlife Action Plan. That agency should be praised for making a huge effort and going out of their way to try to protect insects. In 2024 the Albuquerque BioPark also built a new state-of-the-art insect conservation facility to rear and protect endangered butterflies. More people than ever volunteered their time to the New Mexico Butterfly Monitoring Network to help learn and fight back against species declines. Additionally, in 2024 the University of New Mexico completed a database of the New Mexico Rare Insects of the state, compiling critical information for the protection and recovery of these creatures and making it available online here: https://nmrare.org/. Through it all, the Checkerspot recovery team continued working tirelessly to save the Sacramento Mountains Checkerspot Butterfly from what has looked like a certain end, and learning an enormous amount along the way.

For these reasons I am thankful for the Checkerspot, the lessons it has taught us, and the momentum it has given us. We may not save the Checkerspot, but as a result of its listing I am confident that New Mexico can better protect and serve all of its butterflies than ever before. The Checkerspot has provided hope and a chance for dozens of other rare insect species which never would have had a future without it. This is one thing that brings me hope as a conservationist, but so does the expanding group of individuals who have worked tirelessly to protect this butterfly and others in our state. Aldo Leopold wrote in a Sand County Almanac that “to have an ecological education is to live alone in a world full of wounds.” However, in my time working on the Checkerspot recovery team and insect conservation in New Mexico, I have been many things: frustrated, angry, depressed… , but I have never once been alone. If you ask me what gives me hope through all the losing battles, it is the people around me who get up every morning to fight for the natural world and to protect its creatures and places. So thank you, to Steve Cary, to the Checkerspot recovery team, to everyone involved in the New Mexico Butterfly Monitoring Network, to everyone who volunteered and gave their time last year, and to everyone reading this. Thank you all for your hope, caring, help, and passion and I look forward to us saving some butterflies together in 2025 and beyond.

[Please sign up to monitor a new transect for the New Mexico Butterfly Monitoring Network. We need the data!]

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Butterfly: An Etymological Investigation, by Krista Rudd

butterfly noun

but·​ter·​fly ˈbə-tər-ˌflī 

: any of numerous slender-bodied diurnal lepidopteran insects including one superfamily (Papilionoidea) with broad often brightly colored wings and usually another superfamily comprising the skippers.1

This definition according to Merriam Webster is a good starting point in an investigation of the origins of the word butterfly and how it came to be used in modern-day English.

First, though, I thought it might be interesting to look at the word in various languages.

French: Papillon. This word was also used to describe a rising merchant class’ penchant for dressing in gaudy or conspicuous clothing.2 Shakespeare (1564-1616). refers to this notion also in King Lear: Act 5, Scene 3: “we’ll live, and pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh at gilded butterflies…” The Tragedy of King Lear, Act V, Scene 3. Written 1605-1606. 3

Spanish: Mariposa. Complimentary when applied to female and derogatory when applied to male persons. From Latin meaning “mother-of-pearl”. 4

Italian: Farfalla. Also, a whimsical bow-shaped pasta.2

In Indigenous American cultures butterflies are strongly associated with the supernatural due to their ability to transform from plain and sometimes unappealing forms into colorful and beautiful forms. The Hopi have Butterfly Maiden “Polik-mana” who aligns with their Katsina religion.5

The Dine or Navajo have a lovely children’s story about a kaleidoscope of butterflies that team up to play a trick on Coyote, the ultimate Trickster. Coyote promises to go on an errand for his wife, but the sun is warm and the air cool and he takes a nap instead. The butterflies transport him to a place many miles away and Coyote must travel all day just to reach home. His wife is not pleased when he arrives back empty-handed. This scenario repeats itself 3 more times in the story before Coyote catches on to the trick being played on him. The butterflies laugh themselves silly and this accounts for their seemingly erratic flight – they are remembering the trick they played so successfully on Coyote. 6 The Dine word for butterfly is K’aalo’gii and it signifies transformation and regenerative life, and they too associate butterflies with the sacred. 7

In Modern High German, spoken today in Germany, the word for butterfly is Schmetterling.2 This word transcends the many local dialects of the various German regions. The origin of the word “schmetter” comes from the Czech word “schemtana”, or Slavic word “smeta” which means cream or sour cream.8 “ling” is a suffix that denotes the diminutive. This word came into common usage in the second half of the 18^th century.9 Prior to this time butterflies were commonly known by numerous local names depending upon the German-speaking region. Schmetterling is a term used for both diurnal and nocturnal lepidopteran insects.10

According to the Austrian naturalist and entomologist August Johann Rösel von Rosenhof (1705 -1759) the local name at that time was “Tagvőgel” (Daybirds). 11 Jacob Grimm (1785–1863) and his brother Willhelm (1786–1859) recorded words for their Deutsches Wőrterbuch (German Dictionary) and found the usage “Buttervőgel” (Butterbirds) in literature from 1590 by the author Fromm. Additionally, “Molkendiebe” (Wheythieves) and “Butterfliegen” (Butterflies) are listed as local names in their work.12 Today, depending upon the region and local dialect, words as various as those named above and others such as in the Palatinate “Rahmdiebe” (Creamthieves), in Switzerland “Sommervőgel” (Summerbirds), in the Swabian dialect “Weifalter” (Meadowsway), in the Westphalian dialect “Schmandlecker” (Creamlicker) and more are still in use.12 Hence the necessity of a common “High German” language!

Butterfliege Foto & Bild | natur, nahaufnahme, pflanzen Bilder auf fotocommunity

What is the often-cited connection between witches and butterflies? The Brothers Grimm recorded a folk etymology collected by J.L. Frisch (1666-1743) from a 1720 publication in which he writes: “aber man glaubte dasz die Hexen in Schmetterlinggestalt die milch entzőgen” (it is believed that witches in the form of butterflies withdraw milk).13 Having observed that butterflies will land on open milk cans and butter churns to take up nutrients, local farmers and their wives went on to deduce that it was the work of witches who transformed themselves into beautiful insects to steal milk. To wean young, still nursing children, their mothers might tell them that the “milkthieves” had come in the night and they no longer had milk for them. This was also a theory applied by farmers when their milk cows went dry. In the Pennsylvania Dutch region of the US, it was long held that stabbing the milk in a butter churn would kill any bewitchment that might keep the milk from turning over into butter.

It is important to remember that this connection between witches and butterflies evolved during the heyday of witch-hunting in Europe. Judging by the number of witch trials, the height of this craze occurred in southwestern Germany between the years 1561-1670. 14 The Protestant Reformation dates to 1517 and the Catholic Church response to it included the institution of the Roman Inquisition in 1542. 15 Any person suspected of heresy or heretical acts against the church could be accused and brought to trial. In this way the Catholic Church served to substantiate and reinforce the common person’s belief in the existence of witches and other malevolent supernatural entities. The Church was the highest and ultimate authority for most people and the Enlightenment was then just a faint line of dawn on the horizon.

Let’s look at the word origins for “butterfly” in English. English is a language derived from Proto Indo-European root words. The PIE family of languages includes about 445 contemporary languages. No other Proto Indo European (PIE) derived language calls these insects “butter-fly” but English, with the very local dialect exception of “butterfliege” in what is now the State of Hesse in Germany. 16 This linguistic oddity of Indo-European languages is one reason this word has received so much academic interest. “Butterfly” is still a hotly contested word in linguistics and the statement about its singularity is much debated in academic circles.

“Butere” is the Old English word for butter, meaning the fatty part of milk. In Old High German the word is butera”, an early loan word from Latin “butyrum” and from the Greek word “boutyron”. These forms come from the PIE root “gwou” meaning ox, bull or cow and “tyres” from the PIE root “teue” meaning to swell. Proto Indo-European language specialists believe this may be a folk etymology of a Scythian word. Butter is considered to have originated in India, Iran and northern Europe. No Scandinavian language has a word for butter that has its roots in Latin or Greek. Old Norse calls it “smjør” as do the Icelanders today and in Danish it is “smør.” The Persian Herodotus (484-425 BC) described butter (along with cannabis) among the oddities of the Scythians. 17

“Fly” in Old English is “fleoge” from the Proto-Germanic word “fleugon” meaning a flying insect, source also of the Old Saxon word “fliege” and Old Norse “fluga”. 17

Old English replaced local Common Britonic (Gaelic, Celtic and Latin in origin) after the Roman occupiers of Britain departed in 410 AD. The Germanic tribes of the Jutes, Frisians, Saxons and Angles arrived there in the mid-5^th century and brought their Old Germanic language with them. Later arrivals were the Viking Norsemen who brought Old Norse, also a Germanic language. Old English is based upon all the languages that came before it in time and was dominated by Old Germanic for about 700 years before the Norman Invasion in 1099. 18

The Anglo-Saxon scholar Ælfric of Eynsham (955-1025) abbot at Oxfordshire began the first vernacular grammar of Latin in medieval Europe around the year 1000. In it the word for butterfly is rendered as “buterfleoge”. 19 Because the word for butter has its origin in Latin and Greek through Scythia it could have been adopted into Old English via either the Romans or the Germanic tribes. However, it is just as likely that “buter” came from the Gaelic/Celtic/Britonic word for butter: bə-tər. These languages are all Indo-European in origin as is Scythian.

The Old English word for “fly” is rendered as “fleoge”. This word must come from one of the Germanic forms of fly: the Proto-Germanic “fleugon”, Old Saxon “fliege” or Old Norse “fluga”. The Latin word for fly is “musca” and in Greek it is “peto”. 2 No Celtic/Gaelic words apply in this case either. Butterfly is a word constructed out of two ancient words from Britain’s deep past and the various cultures that lived there.

Whether “butterfly” came to be the common English name of a diurnal lepidopteran insect that has the color of butter and was then generalized to all butterflies or because of its association with a proclivity for the taste of milk, cream and butter we will likely never know for certain. There seems to be little to no evidence of the word “butterfly” resulting from a perversion of “flutter-by”. Though we cannot rule out the word “butterfly” arising from the observation that butterfly excrement is yellow in color (according to the Dutch), my faith in the articulation of human language is such that I must think it the result of the astonishing beauty and apparently magical transformational ability of these insects instead.

• 1 www.meriam-webster.com
• 2 www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/french or Italian, Greek, Latin and the word butterfly
• 3 www.Folger.edu/explore/Shakespeare-works/king-lear/read/5/3
• 4 www.spanishdict.com/translate Mariposa
• 5 www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polik-mana
• 6 Peck,Harriet: author and illustrator. Coyote and the Laughing Butterflies. Simon and Schuster, 1995.
• 7 http://glosbe.com/nv/en/k’aalógi#
• 8 http://en.bab.la/dictionary/english-czech/cream
• 9 www.en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Schmetterling and
• http://en.wikisource.org.wiki/An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/(full text)
• 10 www.lichtbildfundus.de/essays/2016/10/woher-hat-der-schemtterling-seinen-namen-und-andere-Infos
• 11 http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/digit/roesel1746ga
• 12 http://www.dwds.de/wb/dwb/schmetterling
• 13 http://archive.org/details/johleonardfrisc00fris
• 14 Witch Trials in Early Modern Europe and New England – Berkeley Law
• 15 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Inquisition
• 16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_language
• 17 www.etymonline.com/word/butterfly
• 18 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old-English
• 19 Ælfric of Eynsham (ox.ac.uk) and
• Ælfric of Eynsham – Wikipedia

[Thanks, Krista for that very illuminating report!]

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