A few summers ago, I was walking my dog in a pasture near my house when a butterfly landed on my bare leg. It was a medium-sized black butterfly with orange crescents along the margins of its wings and rows of white dots adjacent to the border. Its antennae were tipped with orange clubs. On the underside, the butterfly displayed a striking checkerboard pattern of orange, black, and white.
It was a Baltimore checkerspot (Euphydryas phaeton) – the first time I’d ever seen one.
Last summer, I watched two Baltimore checkerspots visit a patch of milkweed on our property. I learned about these butterflies from field biologist Bryan Pfeiffer, who describes them as “audacity on the wing” and “some of the most shocking and beautiful butterflies on the continent.”…