Pine Butterfly

Saw this pretty little fellow on the mint and was happy to have captured a different kind of butterfly. I just now looked it up to see what it was. Well, it's rather a destructive little thing!!

Oregon State University Extension Service has this on their website:

The pine butterfly (Neophasia menapia), also known as the, "pine white", or "white pine butterfly", occurs in pine forests, as well as Douglas-fir, throughout the western United States and British Columbia. Robert Michael Pyle (Pyle 2002) notes that this is one of only three butterfly species in our region that have larvae that feed on conifers. Most conifer defoliators are larvae of moths. Although pine butterfly population levels are typically quite low, periodic large outbreaks are believed to have occurred in Oregon though none have been specifically documented until recently. Eastern Washington and Idaho have had large outbreaks reported many years ago. Most pine butterfly outbreaks are generally short lived, but can lead to growth loss and mortality of ponderosa pine across large areas, often associated with other factors such as fire, bark beetle outbreaks and drought. However, Western Forest Insects (Furniss and Carolin 1977) describes the pine butterfly as, "one of the most destructive insect enemies of ponderosa pine in the Northwest"