Delaware County NY

[evoluhol at magnum.wpe.com]

Hi,

I am in the northern side of Deleware County NY.

Butterflies are quite thick here this year and are having more
generations, but the seasons are all off by having summer in May and
spring all summer.  In the moths, underwings flew in July this year rather
than September.

Monarchs are limited this year here due to temperature.  They are a
tropical butterfly and not only follow the foodplant north, but follow the
temperature also.  When it is too cold (many nights this summer in
Deleware County have been in the 40s and most days it never gets to 70)
they slow their migration -- and here at one of its northern points, few
came this far this year.  Also, as populations increase of most any living
thing, so do predators including microrganisms.  Monarchs invariably when
they have a large population year are thus vulnerable to and often fall
victem to those predators that or the next year and populations are
reduced.  This could have had an effect this year.  In any case, the few
monarchs I have seen this year this far north started the southern
migration last week. 

As far as scientific names:  A common name is a local name and in most
cases is restricted to one language.  To really communicate on them would
require a list of names and knowlege of languages;  by using the standard
Latin binomial nomenclature, when a name is used anywhere in the world a
person should be able to know what species is being refered to.
     For example:  Nymphalis antiopa is called the Mourning Cloak (what a
hideous name for such a beautiful butterfly) in much of the United States 
(in some places it is called something like "The Yellow Edge"), the
Camberwell Beauty in England, and another name in Japan in Japanese which
I personally am unable to read or pronounce.  In every language and
country of the world a person can know what butterfly Nymphalis antiopa
is.      By the way, the fresh ones are emerging this week in Deleware
County NY.

Dave Bouton

In article <24178-35E7E21B-21 at newsd-151.iap.bryant.webtv.net>,
sebrez at webtv.net wrote:

> I continue to notice a lack of most species this year, especially
> obvious, monarchs, I have seen hardly any. One other observation, whites
> and sulphurs seem to be larger this year. I am the amateur of amateurs
> and only know the common names, why do most use the scientific names?