[NatureNS] Morning Cloak butterfly

From: "Jean Timpa" <jtimpa@ns.sympatico.ca>
To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2006 14:18:34 -0300
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	Thanks for the results!! The butterfly you see now will in awhile find 
a nice hiding hole in a hollowed out tree knot, or broken off limb, or in an 
old derelict building or a woodpile, as I once found one, and hibernate for 
the winter. Should be have a long warm thaw in the winter sometime, it 
might even "wake up" enough to come out at the height of the warmth and 
fly around a bit. If it is really lucky it will find a broken maple branch and be 
able to use the sap for food. As the day begins to cool off again, it will find 
another protected place, perhaps even the same one, and go back to 
dormancy until real spring comes. They must have a marvelous anti freeze 
system. We have several butterflies here in NS which follow this pattern as 
well, the Angle wing butterflies, also known as Commas for their silvery 
punctuation mark on the underside hind wings, and their close cousins, the 
Question Mark, again suitably marked with a smidge of imagination. So 
they are often our first butterflies, but they have not just hatched out of their 
crysalids, as most other butterflies do, except the migrating ones, the most 
famous of which, of course, is the Monarch. It is a fascinating and complex 
world despite their small size, delicate constitutions, and supposedly 
simplistic ways. Other close relatives -it's all in the family! - Compton's and 
Milbert's Tortoiseshell butterflies also overwinter here as adults. And the 
commas and question marks have a distinctively different colour pattern 
(dark purply hind wings) for their summer brood as opposed to their 
overwintering colours which are much more reddish brown all over with 
only a bit of the dark purple on wing edges. How fascinating that they can 
change their attire for the seasons without going to The Bay!  JET

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