Vanessa at night - no 3

[Bob Parcelles,Jr.]

--- Stan Gorodenski <stanlep at extremezone.com> wrote:
> Eduardo Marabuto wrote:
> > 
> > But is the way you mentioned to find out if they fly at night,
> running
> > night traps
> > (I suppose, based on light?) considered artificial light? If they
> are,
> > this won't
> > really come to an end!
> > Why not use infra-red glasses to see at night?
> 
> This has started me thinking.
> One way to determine if they fly at night is the following.
> Get about 100 paper cups.  Cut the bottom off and cover each
> opening
> with netting held in place by rubberbands.  Put one Vanessa in each
> and
> then place the cups at various places in an locality away from man
> made
> lights according to Paul's distance criteria of one quarter mile. 
> One
> hour after sunset (Paul's criteria), open the end of the cup the
> butterfly is not resting on, if it is resting on one of the netting
> ends
> at all.  Throughout the night monitor the cups to see if any are
> missing.  One might also put a florescent mark on both upper and
> lower
> wings.  The butterfly may have simply crawled out of the cup
> without
> flying.  One could then see if this happened by the use of a
> florescent
> light.  If a butterfly is not in its cup and has not merely crawled
> out,
> it could be concluded (one would also have to find some way to rule
> out
> predation) that it indeed is flying at night.
> 
> Instead of paper cups, florescent marked butterflies could maybe be
> placed individually in the open in various marked locations one
> hour
> after sunset with the use of carbon dioxide in the same way
> geneticists
> temporarily gas Drosophila.
> 
> Stan
> 

Bingo,

I think Paul has hit upon the answer. They are attracteded to light,
so therefore these 100's of thousnads of butterflys that must travel
at night to cross these large distances of water without falling in
the drink ...They follow cruise ships! Why didn't we think of that
before. Maybe when Anne goes to Ireland paul can take my ticket and
document this. Ain't science grand!

bob

=====
Bob Parcelles, Jr
Pinellas Park, FL
RJP Associates, C2M-BWPTi
rjparcelles at yahoo.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naturepotpourri
"Change your thoughts and you change your world."
- Norman Vincent Peale

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