Mr. Weiping Xie

I tried them mostly in the events such as the wedding party," said Weiping Xie, an entomologist with the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

Mr. Weiping Xie Collections Manager wxie@nhm.org

Mr. Weiping Xie Collections Manager wxie@nhm.org

Weiping Xie, collections manager in the Entomology Department at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, experienced a similar phenomenon on his way to Death Valley that same weekend.Asked by the Palisadian-Post to comment on increased butterfly sightings throughout the Southland, Xie could not help but chuckle as he told his story:

'I was driving along and all of a sudden they started hitting my windshield by the hundreds,' he recalled. 'It's impossible to say how many there are but I think you could safely guess it's in the millions.It's also impossible to predict how long this current dispersal will last.'

The species of butterfly Marguiles and Xie encountered is called the painted lady (Vanessa cardui), also known as the 'cosmopolitan butterfly' because it is one of the most common butterflies in the world, living on every continent except Antarctica.