THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 27, 1994 TAG: 9407270354
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
Since most children and many of us adults see few butterflies these days, you may wish to drop by Sunday at a Butterfly Family Festival from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Virginia Zoological Park in Norfolk.
In a way, a butterfly is every bit as intriguing as a hippopotamus.
The day will be awash with butterflies. Kimberley Barclift will lead tours of the zoo's eight butterfly gardens.
Stan Nicolay and Bill Shealy will display cases of specimens from their extensive collections. Jeanne Pettersen and David Liebman will illustrate lectures with color slides from photographer Liebman's wildlife library of 100,000 items.
Buddy Shafer will discuss butterfly gardening with tropical plants to lure hummingbirds.
Donald Denault will demonstrate how to build a cage of wood and screen in which to raise caterpillars and butterflies.
One may order Virginia's new auto license plate displaying in color the yellow and black tiger swallowtail butterfly, the state insect.
The plate's emblem was modeled on Liebman's photograph of what he calls ``the most beautiful female tiger swallowtail I have ever seen.''
The tiger swallowtail, as big as the palm of a man's hand, is found throughout Virginia, Liebman said. Its green caterpillar, bearing false eye spots, orange with black pupils, to frighten away birds and green snakes, ``looks like a creature from outer space,'' he said.
Any larger, it would frighten me.
The caterpillar lays its egg in the center of the top of a leaf of the wild black-cherry tree, which, I told him, is the first positive thing I ever heard about the wild black-cherry.
A great many people regard it as a trash tree, one to be shunned, which shows that the least prepossessing of us may play a part.
In our yard an intruder, a wild black-cherry tree is winning a struggle for space with a crape myrtle. Let them fight it out amongst themselves, I have held. Now there is a reason for allowing the cherry to survive.
The swallowtail also lays its eggs on the tulip poplar, Liebman said.
In Hampton Roads, the swallowtail prefers to deposit eggs on the wild-cherry. In Richmond, it favors the tulip poplar, but that is only one of the differences that define Norfolk and Richmond.
To test the leaf on which to lay eggs, the butterfly touches it with her front feet containing taste buds.
To lure butterflies, plant a butterfly bush and don't eradicate black cherries. Butterfly bushes will be on sale at the festival. Jan Gates and Mark Schneider will tell how to plant them.
To amuse children, artist Ragan Freeman will supervise pasta art, butterfly face-painting and bubble-making. Zoo docents with animals will mingle with the crowd.
``It all buzzes with energy,'' said Julia Bristow, president of the Butterfly Society of Virginia, which is staging the festival.
The festival is free except for the usual modest zoo fee. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
The tiger swallowtail
by CNB