A plague of butterflies in Texas--or, Good God awmighty the apocalypse IS upon us!

[first published in "The Flatland Oracles," my previous blog, on July 27, 2006]

If I had to choose, I'd prefer them to locusts, a rain of frogs, or a river of blood, I guess. 

[quote from NY Times article by Ralph Blumenthal begins]

South Texas is under siege from swarms of airborne migrants: tens of millions of Libytheana bachmanii larvata — snout butterflies to y’all — along with Kricogonia lysides, or yellow sulfurs, that have taken advantage of an unusual drought-and-deluge cycle to breed in spectacular if not record profusion...

Blinded drivers who have to pick the critters off their grilles to avoid dangerous engine overheating are less than enthralled, as are the mottephobes, who fear butterflies and moths. But lepidopterists are thrilled with the spectacle, which they predict may be only the beginning of a population explosion of snouts.

They concede, however, that it could denude considerable swaths of Texas hackberry trees and other choice caterpillar habitats, at least for a while.

“Snouts, I’m at a loss for words,” wrote Joshua S. Rose, a biologist and dragonfly specialist with the World Birding Center at Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park near Mission, Tex., in an e-mail message to friends Tuesday.

“They’re beyond any mere collection of individual animals,” Dr. Rose wrote. “Like a flock, herd, swarm or even horde, they have more in common with a geologic or climatic force, the Gulf Stream or an Arctic front. While driving, we can’t dodge butterflies, we can only aim the car at the parts of the road where the density is lowest.”

[quote from NY Times article ends]

They look rather pretty in the photograph accompanying this article, but are described as "variegated brown."  That's a pity; if Texas is to have a plague, it would be nice if it could be an attractive one.

Whenever I hear about butterflies, and especially now, I flash back to the guy in One Hundred Years of Solitude who was accompanied everywhere by little white butterflies, like a character in a cartoon.  They were the outward sign of an inward and invisible grace, I guess.  Sadly, his fate is a harsh one; for reasons I can't any longer recall, he ends up in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, being driven crazy by little white butterflies.

And of course I also think of Eugenia from A.S. Byatt's wondrous Morpho Eugenia in Angels and Insects.

Neither association is particularly encouraging if what we're talking about is a plague-like infestation of insects.  Butterflies.  What next?   What other weird phenomena lie in store for us? 

Whatever happens, some of us are sure to blame it on climate change and others on the Apocalypse that the prophets of doom are predicting.   Neither seems all that far-fetched just at the moment.