October 9, 2011 - Mistaken Identity
Welcome to the Nature Notebook.

Those lemon yellow butterflies with pale undersides are sulphur butterflies. They are active from spring through fall. Male sulphurs typically patrol an area with a rapid flight, searching fields, yards, road edges, parks and gardens for females of their kind. They look among plants and shrubs for the bright yellow color. Sometimes they get a little confused. One sulphur butterfly discovered a yellow-orange candy wrapper along the edge of the road. The butterfly hovered around the wrapper and flitted back and forth to it several times. The candy wrapper never moved. An unreceptive female would have flown away. Twice the butterfly landed on the wrapper as if attempting to mate. Finally, getting no response from the inanimate candy wrapper, the butterfly flew off, we can presume, in search of a real live female of its kind.

This is PPL's naturalist, Jon Beam, with the Nature Notebook for WVIA.