Bug Testing... Literally

The last few days I've been playtesting and bug fixing my new world.  Bug fixing literally.  As I have played Maggie, my play test sim, I noticed a problem in her rounds to collect gems to fund her equestrian dreams. I have seen absolutely no butterflies. None, not even one. That is strange, that's more than strange.  I did notice I had an inordinate amount of small animals.
So, I started thinking on this problem.  I didn't place any small animal spawners in CAW.  I know that the Pets expansion added the functionality that all spawners now have the ability to also spawn small animals.  Which is great for players with established worlds. Now a player would still have the same benefits of finding small animals out and about in the wilderness.  However, rather than adding to the spawns, this new functionality shares with spawns.  Which means if you have a butterfly spawner, instead of spawning a butterfly and a small bird it will only spawn the bird.  This has been going on since Pets release.

I had never noticed much of a problem though before. Until I created this world.  I decided maybe the fact I hadn't put any animal spawners in the world and that was causing the issue.  I went back to CAW and added in pet spawners  everywhere, even the dog dig spots.  Then I went back to play testing, nope still no butterflies.  I gave Maggie the collection helper to see if that made a difference.  I did notice I was seeing beetles, they're just hard to spot. But still no butterflies.  

After doing some more research what I discovered related to a combination of conditions.  First, there's the pets issue where mini pets spawn in the place of the the normal spawn. Secondly, apparently the showtime patch added fireflies, and changed lightening bug spawners into Light Beetle Spawners. Fireflies now share spawns with butterflies.  At 6pm in game, all butterflies disappear and fireflies replace them..... if you have showtime.... but if you don't have showtime, the butterflies still disappear.  6am the butterflies are suppose to reappear, but because they share spawn with small pets they may not respawn until the player collects the mini pet.  Thirdly, insects are so bloody small and two dimensional that if you are not in play mode and wait a moment over each given area they just don't appear. It takes the game a moment to "spawn" the animation for them.  I find it funny that seeds appear larger than some of the mini pets and insects in the game.