Vanessa at night

[Mark Walker]

And here's a few other thoughts that I've repeated here on occasion:

Sun and heat are sufficient but not necessary conditions for lep activity.
In tropical climates, full overcast skies and even rain are not complete
deterrents.  As for temperature - well, David Fine and I were astonished to
find Chlosyne californica and C. neumoegeni on the wing in the foothills of
the Bighorn Mountains of the California Mojave desert during freezing rain.
As they say in Vermont - "wicked cold".  The snow line was no more than 500
feet above us.  Now granted, they weren't plentiful nor very jolly - but
there they were nonetheless.

I think sometimes these things find themselves in situations where they have
misinterpreted the environmental cues and have no other choice but to try
and survive.  If they've got the migration gene and they find the party food
can't sustain the size of the party, then motoring after dark is probably
not that far fetched.

As far as leps that fly at night - well, this does indeed exist.  There is
at least one genus (Melanitis) in particular that I've encountered that ONLY
flies in the dark.  I first encountered it after midnight at the airport in
Dehli, India - thinking it was a moth.  I saw many more during my days in
India - one in particular while sipping tea with Rohtas, my driver and
friend , well after dark at a roadside vendor.  There it went, bopping along
as always, with nothing more than a campfire burning somewhere in the
distance.  I also found them waiting on my hotel window sill in the morning
- having been caught offguard during their pre-dawn flight by the rising
sun.

Mark Walker.

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