Vanessa at night - migrations

[Mark Walker]

I have seen "clouds" of Vanessa cardui that make normal rain clouds look
transparent.  I rather like the confetti analogy - only imagine the downpour
occurring relentlessly from an infinite source.  Not even Alfred Hitchcock
in his wildest imagination could have reconstructed such an image.  I'm with
Patrick - who cares whether the bugs normally fly at night.  The question
is:  are there ever any conditions that would result in such an activity.
The evidence presented here so far is quite satisfactory, IMO.  It can
happen.

Mark Walker.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kenelm Philip [mailto:fnkwp at aurora.alaska.edu]
> Sent: Sunday, February 03, 2002 10:58 PM
> To: leps-l at lists.yale.edu
> Subject: Re: Vanessa at night - migrations 
> 
> 
> 
> > Yes, Ken lots of people claims to have seen CLOUDS of migrating
> > butterflies:
> 
> To my mind, there is a significant difference between someone 
> reporting
> 'clouds of butterflies' (a rather vague quantitative measure), and a
> number of different people reporting what they thought was a real
> cloud in the distance, that later turned out to be composed 
> of butterflies.
> 
> 	I can also report from my own personal experience being on the
> receiving side of the disbelief that an established scientist can have
> for an 'anecdotal record'. Years ago I told Charles Remington 
> that I had
> found _Incisalia niphon_ on West Ridge, New Haven, CT. He informed me
> firmly that I was mistaken--the species did not occur there. 
> Fortunately
> I was not one of _his_ students, so I held my own (and I 
> still have two
> specimens). But someone _could_ have forged the label data, so having
> specimens that no one else saw collected could still be disbelieved by
> someone whose mind was already made up...
> 
> 	By the way, one mustn't omit the effects of wind on 'migration'.
> In 1975 I was on Victoria Island (Canadian Arctic Archipelago). When I
> arrived at our field site in the Kuujjua River valley (24 
> June) there were
> no butterflies to be seen. On 27 June a single butterfly was seen at a
> distance--then on 28 June one _Rheumaptera hastata_ (Geometrid) was
> caught. One 30 June the first butterflies were collected--and 
> on 1 July
> a number of _R. hastata_ turned up along with more 
> butterflies. No more
> _hastata_ were seen after that, but the butterflies were out 
> (weather per-
> mitting) for the next month.
> 
> 	Additional data are:
> 
> There was a major outbreak of _R. hastata_ in the taiga in 1975, both
> in Alaska and in northwestern Canada. There was a prolonged period of
> strong south wind as we arrived at our field site--which also occurred
> in Alaska. Alaska Lepidoptera Survey volunteers picked up 
> _hastata_ on the
> coast of the Arctic Ocean that summer.
> 
> 	All this indicates to me that these moths were picked up and
> _blown_ a few hundred miles north from their usual haunts. I 
> have never
> heard of this species making long flights under its own 
> power. Nor have
> I ever heard of it emerging simultaneously with the earliest 
> butterflies,
> so I don't think the Kuujjua valley individuals emerged at 
> that locality.
> 
> 							Ken Philip
> fnkwp at uaf.edu
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  
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