Painted Lady MIGRATIONS

[Morten Dewald Drogemuller Hansen]

Hi LEPS-netters

Last year i wrote an article dealing with the 1996 invasion of Painted Ladies
in Nortern Europe. Please read the article at URL 

http://www.mi.aau.dk/~dd/cardui.html

There is accumulating evidence that the rainfall in source areas of migrations
is of vital importance for the Painted Lady. The winter 1997-98 has been very
dry in N Africa, but heavy rain and thunder storms have flooded E Africa 
(Ethiopia and Somalia), where Painted Lady populations occasionally may build
up (Williams 1930). 

And indeed, at Eilat in Israel, the world's best location for migrating 
raptors, there is at the moment a strong and steady migration of Painted 
Ladies from south to north!!! These butterflies propably originate from E 
Africa. The numbers reported are about 50 / h. No butterflies at all are
flying in the opposite direction.

kind regards
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* Morten D.D. Hansen                  *
* Dept. of Zoology                    *
* Institute for Biological Sciences   *
* University of Aarhus                *
* DK-8000 Aarhus C                    *
* Denmark                             *
* e-mail: dd at mi.aau.dk                *
* homepage: http://www.mi.aau.dk/~dd/ *
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