{"id":732,"date":"2007-02-19T08:43:56","date_gmt":"2007-02-19T15:43:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/2007\/02\/19\/southern-dogface-butterfly\/"},"modified":"2008-04-15T22:17:41","modified_gmt":"2008-04-16T05:17:41","slug":"southern-dogface-butterfly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/2007\/02\/19\/southern-dogface-butterfly\/","title":{"rendered":"Southern Dogface Butterfly"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For me, my annual first day of spring here in Tucson always begins when I photograph either my first butterfly or my first wildflower of the new year. On February 17, 2007 here in Tucson, I managed to photograph both of them together, a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.butterfliesandmoths.org\/species?l=1436&#038;chosen_state=04*Arizona\">Southern Dogface (Zerene cesonia)<\/a> butterfly on a blooming Milkvetch (<em>Astragalus<\/em> sp.) plant.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/images\/firefly\/2007\/February\/Zerene-cesonia-1.jpg\" alt=\"Southern Dogface (Zerene cesonia) butterfly on a Milkvetch (Astragalus sp.)\" title=\"Southern Dogface (Zerene cesonia) butterfly on a Milkvetch (Astragalus sp.)\" width=\"400\" height=\"580\" class=\"post-photo\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Southern Dogface butterflies are so named for the yellow dog&#8217;s head marking surrounded by black on each of their dorsal forewings (not visible here). Their ventral wing surfaces are yellow with a small, black-ringed spot on each forewing and either one or two small, brown to pink-ringed spots on each hindwing. The forewings are point-tipped and can either be <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mariposasmexicanas.com\/zerene_c_cesonia.htm\">straight-edged to slightly hooked<\/a> as with this Southern Dogface.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/images\/firefly\/2007\/February\/Zerene-cesonia-2.jpg\" alt=\"Southern Dogface (Zerene cesonia) butterfly on a Milkvetch (Astragalus sp.)\" title=\"Southern Dogface (Zerene cesonia) butterfly on a Milkvetch (Astragalus sp.)\" width=\"480\" height=\"397\" class=\"post-photo\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Southern Dogface caterpillars feed on plants in the Pea Family (Fabaceae), which would include plant species in the <a href=\"http:\/\/plants.usda.gov\/java\/profile?symbol=ASTRA\">genus Astragalus<\/a> like this flowering Milkvetch. A number of <em>Astragalus<\/em> species are <a href=\"http:\/\/ginger.ucdavis.edu\/astragalus\/locoweedspp.html\">poisonous<\/a> because they either accumulate nitrogen or selenium from the soil or contain high levels of the alkaloid swainsonine which causes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ansci.cornell.edu\/plants\/locoweed\/swain2.html\">locoweed poisoning or locoism<\/a>. Not knowing the exact species, I don&#8217;t know if this Milkvetch is one of the poisonous ones&#8230; Or even if Southern Dogface caterpillars would mind if it were poisonous given that their insect metabolism is very different from that of a susceptible animal like a horse or other mammal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For me, my annual first day of spring here in Tucson always begins when I photograph either my first butterfly or my first wildflower of the new year. On February 17, 2007 here in Tucson, I managed to photograph both of them together, a Southern Dogface (Zerene cesonia) butterfly on a blooming Milkvetch (Astragalus sp.)&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/2007\/02\/19\/southern-dogface-butterfly\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read More &rarr; <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arizona-butterflies-and-moths","category-arizona-invertebrates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}