Northern exposure...

[Bill Cornelius]

I saw A hornet take a vanessa out of the air, it flew with the vanessa to a
branch and cut off it's wings. it appeared to bite rather than sting to make
the kill. I couldn't see how it held the butterfly, it happened very fast & may
have stung it in the air. The weather was warm & the hornet ment business.

There's a report of vanessas carrying on after dark late in the year. The
report is in one of the old journals of the lep soc. sometime between '83 or
'90 (+/- ?) The author was looking for supporting info too.

Bill

"Guy Van de Poel & A. Kalus" wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I've regurlay seen Vanessas (atalanta as well as cardui) rather late in the
> evening, but always when it was warm enough for them to fly, mostly on warm
> summer evenings.
> In the area I live in, Heidelberg/Germany, there are a lot of old pear
> trees, just standing in the fields. In september/october a lot of these
> pears will fall to the ground and start rotting, and attract a lot of
> atalantas, Polygonia c-album and bees, flies, wasps, ...
> Hornets will be always around, to hunt every insect coming to this free
> meal.
> I've seen them carry away all kinds of flies, honeybees, ..., but never a
> butterfly. The ones they chased could always get away, it were scenes like a
> world war 2 'Battle of Britain' dogfight between Spitfires and
> Messerschmitts.
> Hornets are a bit clumsy, letting themselves fall on their prey, and
> keeping it to the ground by their greater mass while sting-killing it.
> The butterflies always got away early enough, or the hornets could not get a
> good grip on them, their large wings not being a good surface to cling on
> to.
> Still, I found two sets of atalanta-wings, nicely cut off, the remains of
> dogfights that a hornet won.
> Hornets do fly at night, and it could be noted that the atalantas had
> increasing difficulty to shake off the hornets the later it got, and of
> course the less direct sunlight they had to warm themselves up.
> Maybe the casualties were atalantas that stayed too late?
> (or were drunk - rotting pears contain something like alcohol).
>
> Guy.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Andrew Warren <warrena at mail.science.orst.edu>
> To: Kenelm Philip <fnkwp at aurora.alaska.edu>
> Cc: <leps-l at lists.yale.edu>
> Sent: zaterdag 12 januari 2002 23:41
> Subject: Re: Northern exposure...
>
> >
> > Ken,
> >
> > The record of V. atalanta dead on sea ice on May 21st raises a queation
> > that has been bugging me for quite some time. I am prepared to take a lot
> > of heat on this one, but what the heck, I am curious if others have
> > experiences that may support or refute this theory.
> >
> > Can Vanessas fly at night?
> >
> > What really made me consider this possibility seriously was an encounter
> > on May 27, 2000, with a tattered Vanessa annabella at my mercury vapor
> > light just before midnight (Idaho: Blaine Co., Silver Creek PReserve, 3 mi
> > W Picabo, 4900'). After an active night of moth collecting, on my last of
> > probably a dozen trips to the sheet , I was astonished to find a V.
> > annabella sitting in the middle of the sheet (again, just before
> > midnight), when no annabella was there earlier!!! Now, in the tropics I
> > have taken all kinds of butterflies at MV and UV lights (swallowtails,
> > Pierids, Lycaenids, etc), but this almost
> > always occurs shortly after sunset, and soon after the lights have been
> > turned on (one could argue that these butterflies were perhced for the
> > night very near the light source and became disturbed and attracted to the
> > light). The only butterflies in the tropics that I have taken at lights
> > well after sunset are species known to be crepuscular or nocturnal (such
> > as several genera of very large Pyrgine skippers). So this encounter in
> > Idaho with an annabella after I had been mothing for several hours, to me,
> > suggests that the insect was active in the area, and was not simply
> > disturbed by my lights from its nocturnal perch. Interestingly, despite
> > two days of intense butterfly collecting before and after May 27th at
> > the same site failed to result in the sighting or capture of any
> > additional annabellas.
> >
> > Then I remembered how on two occasions I have seen V. annabella extremely
> > active just before sunset, when no other butterflies were observed (one in
> > Douglas Co., COLO on June 13,1998- a male hilltoping literally just before
> > sunset; and 5-VI-2000 just outside of The Dalles, Wasco Co., ORE- a female
> > that never could be approached for a
> > photograph (but was followed for several minutes- she would not stay
> > still).
> >
> > Growing up in Greenwood Village, Colorado, I vividly remember Vanessa
> > atalanta guarding territories on roof-tops in the neighborhood just before
> > sunset- again when no other butterflies were active.
> >
> > Okay, those are the observations that make me think the Vanessas may have
> > the ability to fly at night, at least during favorable conditions. Does
> > anyone have similar stories of crpuscular or nocturnal Vanessa encounters?
> >
> > Andy Warren
> >
> >
> > On Fri, 11 Jan 2002, Kenelm Philip wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > The _Vanessa atalanta_ (Red Admiral) northward flight this year
> > > reached rather high latitudes:
> > >
> > > In Alaska, Jack Harry reported one specimen at mile 323 Dalton
> > > Highway, 69 degrees N, on 2 July. A number of _atalanta_ were seen near
> > > Haines, 59.25 degrees N.
> > >
> > > In Canada, William Davies found a single specimen on the sea ice
> > > about 4 km off East Bay, Southampton Island (mouth of Hudson Bay), at
> the
> > > odd date of 21 May. Latitude was approx. 64 degrees N.
> > >
> > > Ken Philip
> > > fnkwp at uaf.edu
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
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> >
> >
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>
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