The Butterfly Book
YORK PHD CHAMPIONS NATURE'S GENTLE CREATURES

If you love butterflies (who doesn't?) you won't want to miss reading York grad Phil Schappert's newest book, A World For Butterflies. By the time readers finish its glossy 320-pages, Schappert says he's hoping they'll "know what it means to be a butterfly."

But Schappert, the scientist, (PhD '97) hasn't forgotten his non-scientific public. In fact, he wrote this book partly for the general "educated naturalist," he says.

"I want people to know what incredibly complex lives butterflies lead. I want them to think, 'If I woke as a female butterfly tomorrow, how would I reproduce? How would I get through each day?' "

Interestingly, he never collected butterflies as a kid. "What began as an interest in bird watching eventually became butterfly watching," he says. "The problem was, birds are active only in the early morning or late evening during summer. So what do you do in between times? Watching butterflies seemed like a natural solution."

Schappert's fascination with butterflies really began to fly after he arrived at York to do his doctorate. "I went to York because of the partnership I formed with professors, Joel Shore, Laurence Packer and Marla Sokolowski when I took a course on Insect Behaviour and Plant Sex."

According to Schappert who now works as a lecturer and ecologist at the University of Texas, Austin, there's a groundswell of people interested in butterflies these days. "The North American Butterfly Association has about 6,000 members. They watch and list butterflies the way other people do birds."