Painted Lady Invasion?

[Morten Dewald Drøgemüller Hansen]

Hi LEPS-netters

On Mon, 16 Nov 1998 Burnetted at aol.com wrote:

> Hi Eddie,
> 
> You said, "Here in Barbados in the Eastern Caribbean, we are seeing Painted
> Lady butterflies regularly this autumn, all over the place in small numbers.
> This is unusual, because we know of only one or two previous records and we
> have not seen any in the (virtually)10 years we have been looking.  Where do
> they come from?  From the North or from across the Atlantic?  I would be
> interested to find out where!"
> 
> An alternate possibility is that someone is releasing them.  

>From Europe it seems obvious that Painted Ladies in Barbados must be
immigrants from the US! There was a big migration towards north in spring,
and this could be the descendants moving south! In Sinai, Israel, millions
of Painted Ladies arrived from the north around 1st October and this could
also be the case in Barbados? Taking into account that Painted Ladies
occur regularly on Iceland, the distance to Barbados from US mainland
seems to be no obstacle for the butterflies!

kind regards
Morten DD Hansen, Aarhus, Denmark