Alert: 'Butterflies Of Doom' Have Reportedly Returned To NYC

Red Admiral butterfly at Verdi Square, Broadway and West 73rd Street

Brace yourselves because the Red Admiral butterflies—a variant also, and perhaps more memorably, known as the "butterfly of doom"—have descended on New York City. That's according to my colleagues, who say (with apparent optimism) they keep seeing these winged omens flicking around. It must mean something, but what, I wonder?

Or maybe it's just butterflies doing butterfly stuff. According to NJ.com, the current harbingers stream up from the South in the spring, the offspring of the (now-dead) wave of butterflies our northerly cold drove to states like Georgia and the Carolinas last winter. Red Admirals reportedly "have a very erratic, rapid flight," and some will fly as far south as Mexico or Guatemala, then flit the 2,000 or so miles back up to Canada, Cornell entomologist Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann previously told Gothamist.

Anyway, these doombugs come around every year, occasionally in great swarms—recall 2012, when a warm winter allowed the Red Admirals to flourish—but usually in numbers unremarkable to anyone but butterfly enthusiasts. The insects themselves somewhat resemble Monarchs, in that they have striking orange-and-white markings offset by a brown wingscape, but are... less striking, in my opinion. So what makes them extra special, Gothamist asked Gangloff-Kaufmann?

I would say nothing, except that it is native, pretty and it was unknown until relatively recently that the red admiral migrates at high altitudes, the same way Monarchs do. They do not aggregate in their southern range, the way Monarchs do.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

One thing I actually do find noteworthy, with respect to Red Admirals, is their preferred mealtime menu: They will deign to feed on flowers only when "sap flows on trees, fermenting fruit, and bird droppings" are not available. Red Admirals would rather eat shit than drink floral nectar! And, while you let your brain marinate in that information puddle, here's a second thing, per ButterfliesAndMoths.org: "Young caterpillars eat and live within a shelter of folded leaves; older caterpillars make a nest of leaves tied together with silk." I appreciate this detail both because it drops two unspeakably nice visuals into my head, and also because it gave me occasion to Google "where do butterflies sleep," which in turn leads us here: "At night, or during inclement weather, most butterflies perch on the underside of a leaf, crawl deep between blades of grass or into a crevice in rocks, or find some other shelter, and sleep."

It would appear that Red Admirals have discerning aesthetic tastes, which they hone over time. Sophisticates, really.

So now we're up to two things that make the Red Admiral a superior specimen, and here's a third: Writer Vladimir Nabokov liked this butterfly—formally known as the Vanessa atalanta—best, and talked about it constantly. "Its coloring is quite splendid and I liked it very much in my youth," he is on the record as definitely having said. "Great numbers of them migrated from Africa to Northern Russia, where it was called 'The Butterfly of Doom' because it first appeared in 1881, the year Tsar Alexander II was assassinated, and the markings on the underside of its two hind wings seem to read '1881'. There is something interesting in the Red Admirable's ability to travel so far."

And personally, I see no reason to exert yourself over such a long distance, unless you have an extremely important message to send, or murder to presage. So I ask you once again, what do you think this spate of Doom Butterflies means for our fair (cursed) city?