N. antiopa in the UK
Nick Bowles
NickBowles at my-email.co.uk
Sun Dec 13 04:19:22 EST 1998
Morton Hansen and Runar Krogan are probably right that the Camberwell Beauty needs warm, dry summers to allow larval development; but here in the UK we can often get reasonably large influxes of migrants during the autumn. Most of these overwinter in the East where the summers are so dry (and some years very sunny) that it nearly achieves official classification as a semi-arid region, with subsequent EU drought relief funding; but there has never been a single recorded instance of succesful breeding in hte wild. Relatively few of the autumn immigrants seem to last our winters and I distinctly recall some research that showed that the females were most at risk from the perils of warm, moist winters, while males were far less affected. Of course I cant remember who published this research.
Is it possible that following a migation of such distance and difficulty, the butterflies are weakened and more susceptible to disease during a mild winter?
Conservation Officer for UTB\ Butterfly Conservation
94 Miswell Lane, Tring, Herts HP23 4EX tel 01442 824 407
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