Columnist Susan Snyder: Ladies stop for visit in Vegas

Friday, May 4, 2001 | 9:03 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Fridays, Sundays and Tuesdays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or 259-4082.

Las Vegas has been teeming with painted ladies.

Oh, not that kind. These ladies are butterflies.

Their markings resemble the orange-black-white of monarchs, but they are half as big. And if you spent any time outdoors near trees, flower gardens or grassy areas the past couple of weeks, you likely saw a few -- maybe more than a few.

The ladies, which typically thrive in Mexico's northern regions, made a mass migration north this year, flitting their way through the Las Vegas Valley on their way to points even farther north.

"It was humongous. It was phenomenal," said Teri Knight, director of conservation science for the Nature Conservancy's local office.

Knight says she watched in fascination as they took over her yard with their delicate silence.

"I was sitting in my living room just watching them hit my plants. It looked like an orange mirage on my mesquite tree. It was just awesome," she said.

Now these aren't the same butterflies people saw out at EcoJam a couple of weeks ago. Those were monarchs, and they were let loose at the festival on purpose. The 55-butterfly release was a fund-raiser for UNLV's student chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects, says Jennifer Margison, a UNLV landscape architecture student.

Margison says she got the idea after seeing a similar release in California, where monarchs had been tagged so biologists could track their migration.

Tagged?

"They used itty-bitty pieces of white paper with an 800 number on it," Margison said.

But we digress.

Peter Brussard, a biology professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, says painted ladies were lured here by a greener-than-usual spring. They like to lay their eggs in trees and bushes, and the more the better.

"All of Seattle's rain fell down there this year, and there was a huge profusion of plants," Brussard said. "Now we have umpteen gazillion of them."

Good enough number for me. Not sure how you'd count butterflies anyhow.

Brussard says it's hard to say why some painted ladies head north and others stay in Mexico. Likewise, it's hard to tell which ones will lay their eggs here and which ones will continue north. Many have continued moving north toward Reno, he said. However, they may not find that area as inviting.

"There's nothing up here to lay eggs on yet," he said. "But we have reports of them in Modoc County, in Northern California."

Linn Mills, a horticulturist at the Las Vegas Valley Water District's Desert Demonstration Gardens, says butterflies are just the beginning. The wet spring likely will bring a host of bugs and winged beasties.

Most recently the gardens have been inundated with a moth that lays its eggs in trees, Mills said. The worm that emerges is about the size of an adult's index finger.

"They're big, long worms that fall from the trees," he said. "And if you're standing underneath, well ..."

Ick.

The worms crawl in a constant search for food before changing into moths, Mills said, covering rural roads in some areas as they make their trek.

"It's like adding ice to the road," he said.

Ick. Drive safely, and wear a hat.