clouded sulphur

not listed

N5 - Secure

S5 - Secure

not listed

Clouded sulphur is a medium-sized to large butterfly.

On the male the upperside of both wings are yellow with a wide, solid, black border at the outer margins. There is a small black spot near the middle of the leading margin of the forewing and a small silver spot with an orange border on the hindwing. The female wings have fainter black markings and have yellow spots within the black border. Clouded sulphur rarely lands with wings open so these features are seldom useful in the field.

The underside of both wings is yellow with a row of small, faint, brown, submarginal spots. The hindwing has a double spot of silver rimmed with pink.

There is also a white-form female with greenish-white wings.

The caterpillar is green and up to 1⅜″ long. As with all caterpillars, there is a row of small, oval to round openings (spiracles) on the on each side of the body. The spiracles appear on the first segment of the thorax and the first through eighth segments of the abdomen. There is a white stripe in this spiracular area extending from just behind the head to the anal plate. The stripe is edged in black or dark green at the bottom and may have a thin bar of pink or orange in the center.

Wingspan: 1⅜″ to 2¾″

Fields, lawns, roadsides, meadows, and other open areas.

Two or three broods from mid-May to late October.

They can often be seen in large numbers at mud puddles.

Females lay pale eggs singly near the center of a leaflet on host plants.

The last brood overwinters as pupae.

White clover (Trifolium repens) and sweet clover (Melilotus spp) are the preferred hosts. Other foods include Alfalfa (Medicago sativa ssp. sativa), bird’s-foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus var. corniculatus), vetches (Vicia), and other plants in the pea family (Fabaceae).

Flower nectar

Sources

7, 20, 21, 24, 29, 71.

Common

Location: Pennington Co MN