Pictured is a cabbage white butterfly, or Pieris rapae. The first person to find the first live cabbage white butterfly of the year in the three-county area of Sacramento, Yolo and Solano will receive a pitcher of beer or its equivalent. Courtesy photo

WEST SACRAMENTO, CA (MPG) - 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, is underway as of Jan. 1.

The first person to find 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.

Assisting with the 2025 contest will be the Bohart Museum of Entomology, directed by Professor Jason Bond, who is the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and executive associate dean, UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

The 2025 contest rules stipulate that contestants must collect a live butterfly in the wild, video it, and email the entry to the Bohart Museum at [email protected], listing the time, date and place. The insect must be an adult -- no caterpillars or pupae -- and must be captured outdoors, Shapiro said.

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.