166. Pine White

The Pine White will use a variety of conifers as food plants, including Douglas-fir, of which there are many on Leaning Oaks. The females mainly hang out higher in the branches while the males, such as this one, spend time nectaring on flowers. They can have population explosions with severe defoliation of the trees as a result. The last recorded one in B.C. was 1961 where there were "snowdrifts" of Pine Whites along the highway through Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island. There is another anecdote in Guppy and Shepard's Butterflies of BC that describes another outbreak in 1902 (Fletcher) that describes there being vast numbers of butterflies floating around Vancouver Island and thrown up in windrows along the beaches up to an inch or two in depth. I'd like to see photos! Guppy and Shepard surmise that the lack of current outbreaks may be due to the decline old-growth forest on southern Vancouver Island.  

Neophasia menapia peak in August. 

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