environment, there are generally three things some 10,000 years ago, some populations that can happen. First, the species might probably became extinct, while others shifted stay where it is, be unable to adapt to the their range northward or higher in elevation. change, and become extinct. Second, the But if the climate on Mount Washington gets species might stay where it is, be able to adapt warmer, and the population of Melissa Arctics T A X O I S T S to the warmer climate and survive or even there cannot adapt to the new climate regime, thrive under the new conditions. Third, the there is now nowhere for them to go except N M species may move either northward or up in extinct. elevation, where the climate is still suitable for In some sense, this is probably true it, assuming that the cold-adapted plants the of most of the butterflies that inhabit cold species depends on are either already there or climates. They followed the retreating O move along with the species. glaciers northward or up in elevation. Groups When a species moves in response to like Oeneis, Erebia (alpines) Parnassius S T W A N N A H A V E F changing climate, it is called a “range shift” (parnassians), Colias (sulphurs) and Boloria U U and range shifts of plants and animals, (lesser fritillaries) were almost certainly more J N including butterflies, play a large role in widely distributed well to the south of their current climate change studies. By studying present ranges during the last Ice Age. the present distribution of Melissa Arctics, it is In addition to the eleven species of Oeneis rather clear that they once occupied a greater listed on NABA’s checklist, there are dozens area than they do now and that when the of named subspecies — I have seen lists that climate warmed at the end of the last Ice Age, include nine subspecies in North America for

The Genius of the Genus Oeneis Thomas Bentley by Harry Zirlin

In a northern band that circles the globe, with finger-like Yes, Virginia, there are arctics in Arizona! projections prodding south along the mountain I have been fascinated by this group since ranges, lives a group of butterflies in the genus many years ago when I read accounts by Klots Oeneis (pronounced ee-NEE-us, or so I’m and Scudder about the relict populations of told). These butterflies are called “Arctics” Melissa Arctic, Oeneis melissa, that inhabit here in North America, although misguided the upper elevations of Mount Washington and Europeans still refer to some species as other peaks of the Presidential Range in New “Graylings.” Hampshire. I believe I have seen the Mount These are cold-adapted animals, and even Washington population on four different those that live south of the Arctic usually occasions and each time I was taken by the inhabit the alpine zones of mountains. There thought that these butterflies are descended are exceptions, such as Jutta Arctics, Oeneis in a direct line from butterflies that flitted up jutta, which are found at lower elevations in when woolly mammoths walked by. bogs in Maine and elsewhere, but still, Maine You see, global warming has happened isn’t exactly Miami. There are eleven species many times before, although the current in the genus on NABA’s checklist ranging incarnation is the first time that humans Jutta Arctics which may or may not jut out when seen in their usual spruce bog habitat, from northern Alaska east to Maine and south have been responsible for it. When a cold- seem to have been named the German equivalent of “Judith” by Hübner, their describer. (in the west) to central Arizona. adapted animal is confronted with a warming May 27, 2007. Chippewa Co., MI.

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