[NatureNS] Morning Cloak butterfly

Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2006 09:13:08 -0300
From: Eleanor Lindsay <az678@chebucto.ns.ca>
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Thanks for the introduction to this whole new (to me) impressive glimpse 
of our world!
Eleanor

Jean Timpa wrote:
> 	
> 	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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