The Butterfly in Winter

As the cool air has come to Florida, the question keep coming up in my conversations around the garden.

Question: Where do butterflies go in the winter?

Answer: There are a few parts to this answer because different species of lepidoptera can overwinter in different stages of the life cycle. In fact, butterflies and moths overwinter as eggs, larva, pupa, and as adults depending upon their species. Let's take a better look at this below

Egg Overwintering:
Some lepidoptera will overwinter in the egg stage. For instance, Gypsy moths will lay hundreds to thousands of eggs in clusters that will remain dormant until spring. They also have a bad habit of depositing their eggs anywhere including on walls, fences, and occasionally cars.

Larval Overwintering:
Overwintering as larva is widely noted among lepidoptera. The Orange Sulphur butterfly will overwinter as caterpillars on annual vetch in the sea-level areas of central California [See more information on this butterfly at Art Shapiro's Butterfly Site].

Pupal Overwintering:
Many butterflies and moths overwinter in their pupal form and emerge when warm weather returns in the spring. During this overwintering period the metamorphosis process may slow or halt by diapause which is a slowing of metabolic activity and state of dormancy that often comes on in advance of unfavorable environmental conditions (like winter).

Some lepidoptera have staggeringly long periods of diapause:
The yucca moth Prodoxus y-inversus Riley (Lepidoptera: Prodoxidae) has the longest reported diapause. Structures of Yucca baccata (Agavaceae) containing prepupae of this species were collected in Nevada, and successful emergence of adults was observed 19 years later, under artificial conditions. [Defaria (1994)]

Adult Overwintering:
Overwintering as an adult is one of the best known and sometimes most extraordinary ways that lepidoptera can beat the winter chill. Each Autumn, Monarch butterflies begin an up to 3000 mile journey south to roost in massive fir trees in Mexico. Their journey south is marked with overnight roosting points where a viewer can marvel at the hundreds or thousands of butterflies hanging on a common tree, resting during their long journey.

In the spring, the butterflies that have hung mostly dormant for months will warm and begin to fly. After mating these butterflies begin a journey north to deposit eggs and their successive generations will travel even further north. You can learn more about the Monarch migration at Journey North

Side note:
I find it totally baffling that my spell-checker recognizes neither 'lepidoptera' nor 'diapause' as correctly spelled words.