Vanessa at night - no 3

Stan Gorodenski stanlep at extremezone.com
Sat Feb 2 14:11:08 EST 2002


> But I am unaware of any reports of them flying one hour or more
> after sunset or one hour or more before sunrise (except in cases
> where the observer is near artificial lights).

As Nicklas Wahlberg pointed out a while back (I believe), we can't see
in the dark.  You seem to be taking the position that butterflies
(specifically Vanessa's) don't fly at night because you haven't seen
them fly, but we humans can't see in a completely dark night (thus the
reason for outdoor lighting) to be able to say we have or haven't seen
them.  This is kind of a circlular situation - they don't fly because we
don't see them, but we don't see them because we can't see in the dark,
but because we can't see them fly they don't fly, etc.  One way to test
this is to set night traps to catch Vanessa.  It seems I recall, though,
that someone has reported Vanessa's being part of the catch in light
traps for moths.
Stan

 
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