By David Wright & Patricia Sutton
Cape May County is blessed with a wide variety of butterflies, 105 species to be exact. Although this number is somewhat lower than the total number of birds recorded in the county, it is still quite impressive when you consider that butterflies migrate far less than birds and most are permanent "breeders" in the county. Habitat diversity is the key to a large butterfly fauna. Cape May provides a unique blend of salt and freshwater wetlands, oak and pine woodlands, natural grasslands, and old fields. Also the county's peninsular tip occasionally receives vagrant butterflies arriving from southern locations.
Historically, Cape May is of special interest to lepidopterists. It was here that Dr. Henry Skinner of Philadelphia discovered Aaron's Skipper in 1890. This saltmarsh skipper is still common in Cape May County, one of the few places it is still found in New Jersey. Also, studies on the life history of the Red-banded Hairstreak were carried out in the county near Reed's Beach by Sid Hessel in the late 1940's. Hessel gained considerable prominence in the field of lepidopterology and in 1950 a newly discovered hairstreak from Lakehurst (Ocean County) was named afger him. This somewhat rare hairstreak, now known as Hessel's Hairstreak, also occurs in Cape May County. The Monarch migration through Cape May each fall (mid-September through November, though some years beginning as early as August) is as dramatic and as famous as the bird migration. Cape May is a link in the chain of critical habitats for Monarchs, a chain that reaches all the way to Mexico.
Until this checklist, there was no useful literary
source that detailed Cape May's butterflies. This list
(current to August 1999) is a compilation of records
appearing in private collections, museums, and
entomology literature both historic and recent, as well as
extensive field work since the first checklist was published
in 1989. Many of the records cited here do not
appear in Opler's Distribution of the Butterflies of
Eastern United States (1995). This checklist is intended
to represent the most up-to-date catalog of the
region's unique butterfly fauna. This checklist follows
the common names in Checklist & English Names
of North American Butterflies, a publication of the
North American Butterfly Association, Inc. (1995).
Many of Cape May's butterflies have been
poorly studied, especially the skippers (Hesperiidae),
and for this reason new species should be expected
to turn up from time to time. A suppositional list
of species to look for is provided following the checklist.
Records of butterflies from the suppositional
list seen in Cape May County, as well as sightings
of any rare or historic species, and sightings of
the following species of concern (Frosted Elfin, Georgia Satyr, Hessel's Hairstreak) should
be addressed to:
Patricia Sutton, Cape May Bird Observatory, 600 Route 47 North, Cape May Court House, NJ 08210
To download a free copy of our Butterfly Checklist (in Adobe PDF format - file size is 125KB),
Click Here
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