Suds for a Bug: Beer for a Butterfly
Annual Art Shapiro Contest Gets Underway on Jan. 1
Suds for a bug? A bug for some suds?
The annual “Beer for a Butterfly” contest, launched in 1972 by butterfly guru Art Shapiro, now a UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus, gets underway Jan. 1.
The first person to collect the first live cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae, of the year in the three-county area of Sacramento, Yolo and Solano--and is declared the winner---will receive a pitcher of beer or its equivalent.
Shapiro, who has monitored butterfly populations in Central California since 1972, and maintains a research website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/ , says the point of the contest "is to get the earliest possible flight date for statistical purposes.” It's all part of his scientific research involving long-term studies of butterfly life cycles and climate change.
The professor also participates in the contest. In fact, Shapiro has been defeated only four times and those were by UC Davis graduate students. Adam Porter won in 1983; Sherri Graves and Rick VanBuskirk each won in the late 1990s; and Jacob Montgomery in 2016. The first three were his own graduate students.
Recent Beer-for-a-Butterfly Contest statistics:
- 2025: Art Shapiro collected the winner at 12:13 p.m., Jan. 23 in West Sacramento, Yolo County
- 2024: Art Shapiro recorded the winner at 11:30 a.m., Jan. 29 in West Sacramento, Yolo County
- 2023: Shapiro recorded the winner at 11:22 a.m., Feb. 18 in West Sacramento.
- 2022: No official contest due to the COVID pandemic, but Shapiro recorded his first-of-the-year P. rapae at 1:25 p.m. on Jan. 19 in West Sacramento
- 2021: No official contest due to the COVID pandemic, but Shapiro collected his first-of-the-year at 1:55 p.m. Jan. 16 on the UC Davis campus, Yolo County
- 2020: Shapiro recorded the winner in Winters, Yolo County at 11:16 a.m. on Jan. 30 at the Putah Creek Nature Park.
- 2019: Shapiro collected the winner near the Suisun Yacht Club, Suisun City, Solano County, at 1:12 p.m., Friday, Jan. 25.
- 2018: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2017: Jan. 19: Shapiro collected the winner on the UC Davis campus
- 2016: Jan. 16: Jacob Montgomery collected the winner in west Davis
- 2015: Jan. 26: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2014: Jan. 14: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2013: Jan. 21: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2012: Jan. 8: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2011: Jan. 31: Shapiro collected the winner in Suisun
- 2010: Jan. 27: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento