Remarkable Migration For Painted Lady Butterflies
“The thousands of orange butterflies being spotted all over Montreal are simply on a rest stop as they make their way down south.
And 99% of them are painted ladies & not the monarch butterfly, said Maxim Larrivee of the Montreal Insectarium.
...there are clear differences between painted ladies & monarchs, said Stephanie Boucher, curator at McGill University’s Lyman Entomological Museum.
‘The painted lady butterfly is not as well known as the monarch, so that is probably why most people identify it as what they know best,’ Boucher said.
'What’s really unusual is how many there are, which is really unprecedented,’ Larrivee said...
He said he believes they got pushed to the ground by wind during their migration to the warmer southern U.S. climates from the Boreal Shield area. But they generally don’t stick around this long.
'But we have had this spell of amazing weather for us, that is not great migration weather for them. In the meantime, they are fueling up on flowers, this is why we are seeing them (drinking nectar) everywhere,’ Larrivee said.
Larrivee & Boucher both said the painted ladies benefit from the fact they can feed on a wide variety of plants- up to 100, according to Boucher- compared to the monarch, which feeds on milkweed. ‘They can adapt to many different types of plants, so that is a great advantage,’ she said.
Larrivee said the butterflies enjoyed a great winter in terms of reproduction areas like Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, & northern Mexico. They then migrated north earlier than usual, arriving in mid-April & he thinks that gave them the time to have an extra generation, reproducing twice instead of once during the summer...
‘It’s pretty hard to be in a bad mood when you are surrounded by butterflies. It’s fantastic. It’s different,’ Larrivee said.
Now they are waiting for ‘winds that they are going to be able to surf back to the south,’ Larrivee said, ideally blowing from the northeast to the southwest.
For more information on butterflies, go to e-butterfly.org”
Kevin Mio
The Montreal Gazette
Sept. 19/2017
Cute Critter Pic
Weekly Chuckle
M.C. (Oct. 19/2017)
M.C. is missed every single second he's been gone. I love you big man. There's a hole in my heart without you. RIP
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