The winter comes?

[Leptraps at aol.com]

I read with great sorrow the approach of winter and the end of moth 
collecting. I unfortunately must suffer through another Florida winter 
collecting at my leisure.

I once live up in the cold north and reared Nymphalis antiopa on several 
different occasions. I never had a pupa over winter, I did however have 
adults and larva go into hibernation for the winter. The larva in various 
stages of development. On several occasions I even had them survive the 
winter in a bunker I built just for rearing purposes.

When living in western Virginia, I once found three monachs hanging together 
under the eve of my shed during early November. I assumed they where late in 
migrating. They remained under the eve for almost two weeks when Indian 
Summer occurred with temperatures in the upper 70's. The next time I looked 
for them they were gone! Several weeks later when returning from Florida, I 
saw several monarchs on the wing along I-95 in Georgia. It made me wonder.

Leroy C. Koehn
Lake Worth, FL