Finding Utah Butterflies-->Field Crescent (Phyciodes pulchella camillus)

Overview:

Field Crescents fly most commonly in agricultural fields or disturbed areas in our valley floor. Occasional strays may be found in neighborhoods that border alfalfa fields. In the mountains, they fly in moist canyons and feed mostly on blue-flowered asters (Aster ascendens).

Note: To leverage the next section and fly to specific locations, you need to install Google Earth.

Specific Localities:

Rock Canyon, Utah County, Utah. N40 15'54.35" W111 37'34.64" or click here.
Big Cottonwood Canyon, Salt Lake County, Utah. N40 38'9.72" W111 41'53.60" or click here.
Neff's Canyon, Salt Lake County, Utah. N40 40'31.77" W111 46'23.90" or click here.
Upper Lambs Canyon, Salt Lake County, Utah. N40 43'0.55" W111 37'22.91" or click here.
South Willow Canyon, Tooele County, Utah. N40 29'37.96" W112 34'48.04" or click here.

Flight Periods:

These butterflies have multiple generations each year and can be found in May, July, and September in our valley floors or June and August in our mountains.

Raising Caterpillars Resources:

For some reason, finding field crescent caterpillars has historically been very difficult. However, it is not too hard to collect live females and get them to lay eggs in a cage with blue aster. Females lay eggs in large clusters of over 100 eggs. Caterpillars that feed on asters in the lab can go through straight to pupa by being exposed to 24 hours of artificial light. See link below for further instructions.

pdf: http://utahbugclub.org/layout/pdf/Raising_pulchella.pdf 

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