When first picking up the fascinating Life Histories of Cascadia Butterflies, I expected lots of lovely close-up photographs of our native butterflies. While I wasn’t disappointed, the majority of the photos are of the early stages of their life histories, i.e., lots of caterpillars! The thoroughness for depicting each species is outstanding with typically five or more photos of the different larval stages. How did authors David James and David Nunnallee do it? By rearing the butterflies from eggs and photographing each stage of their development.
Robert Michael Pyle wrote the Foreword and he best describes the enormous scale of this work: “…this book is the apex of life history treatments to date. In the whole world, no other comparable region enjoys a work of this scale, ambit, and acuity for its butterfly fauna”.
Excerpted from the Fall 2012 Arboretum Bulletin.