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Entomology department joins other butterfly lovers to measure ecology's health

Journal and Courier
By Curt Slyder
July 20, 2008

Cliff Sadof helps 6-year-old Conner Mann identify a butterfly Saturday while Kapil Raje and Conner's mother, Leeann Mann, look on at Eli Lilly's Wildlife Habitat Recreation Area in Lafayette. (By Thomas Charlesworth/Journal & Courier)

Butterfly nets were in abundance Saturday afternoon on Lafayette's south side.

A crowd of about 100 people gathered across the street from Eli Lilly and Co. Tippecanoe Laboratories for the fifth annual Butterfly Count in Lilly's Wildlife Habitat Recreation Area.

A team of Purdue University entomology experts discussed butterflies and gave the crowd a few tips on how to identify different species.

Then the crowd broke into six groups, each with the goal of counting and identifying butterflies throughout the 100-acre area.

Bong Suk Kim of West Lafayette brought his family.

"We wanted to have the experience, not only of wildlife, but also the butterflies," he said.

Kim's son David, 7, was busy looking at all of the butterflies. Asked what he liked about it, he responded "the colors."

"There are 43 different species of butterflies that have been found out here," said Arwin Provonsha, the co-coordinator for the count.

The count is done every year to help determine the ecological health of Tippecanoe County.

"Butterflies are the easiest way to monitor the ecological health of an area," Provonsha said. "By doing this over a period of time -- every year at the same time in the same area -- you get a pretty good picture of changes in the habitat."

He said the ecological health of Tippecanoe County seems to be improving over the years.

A brief shower in the middle of the afternoon temporarily halted the count. But participants got back to it soon.

"I always enjoy butterflies," said Judy Wagner of Lafayette. "This is pretty cool. A little rainy, but I saw more butterflies than I thought we would."

Jane Hadley of Lafayette also had a good time.

"I love nature. I love butterflies," she said. "But I don't know a lot about them. I certainly learned a lot about their identification, some of their actions in the habitat, how they mate."

Information gathered on Saturday will be summarized and entered into a database, Purdue entomology professor Tom Turpin said.

A total of 567 butterflies from 33 different species were counted Saturday, including two new species never found at the recreation area: the northern broken dash and the banded hairstreak.

More than 800 butterflies were found last year, but the decrease was attributed to the rainy afternoon.