Mourning Cloaks

Perhaps it's just because we're true "Butterfly Geeks", but we couldn't be more excited about this: We have Mourning Cloaks!

Why are we so excited? Well, Mourning Cloaks (Nymphalis antiopa) don't really range this far south in Florida, at least not on a regular basis. These butterflies are much more common further north, though they are occasional seen in Central Florida. In general, they are butterflies of the woodlands, so they are seen in places like the Ocala National Forest, especially in the spring. At other times, the sightings of these magnificent butterflies are few and far between here locally. They are locally common in the rest of the country as far north as Alaska, and are occasionally seen across the sea in the United Kingdom, where they're known as the Camberwell Beauty.

Mourning Cloaks are recognized up north as one of the first butterflies to be seen each spring. Two factors make this possible. First, they overwinter as adults, so they can "wake up" and feed for a few warm sunny days in late winter and then take shelter again if the cold returns. Second, Mourning Cloaks rarely use nectar as their primary food source. They prefer tree sap, allowing them to feed early in spring before flowers emerge. They also love rotting fruit, allowing them to feed late into the fall after the flowers are mostly gone. These survival tactics allow them to be one of the longest-lived butterflies in adult form - some living up to 11 months.

That very long life cycle starts out very typically: Mourning Cloaks lay eggs in the spring on new growth of willows, elms, and hackberry and the caterpillars feed gregariously in a small silk tent until they grow big enough to spread out and eat individually. They can actually do pretty serious damage to the trees if enough of them are in one place. Once the butterflies emerge from chrysalis around the beginning of the summer, they spend a little time feeding, but instead of mating right away, they often enter diapause (a type of insect hibernation) during the very hottest part of summer. They wake up again in the cooler fall weather and fly until winter sets in, when they find sheltered places like cracks in rocks or nooks in tree trunks, and enter diapause until spring. Like many butterflies who overwinter up north, their bodies contain a type of "antifreeze" to allow them to survive the cold. When they emerge in spring, they mate, lay eggs, and then die. While this cycle sounds more or less normal, it's important to note that this yearly cycle is done by only one generation of butterflies (possibly two in the South) and that the adults fly for up to 11 months in some cases. Since most adult butterflies live between two weeks and two months, this is certainly unusual in the world of Lepidoptera.

We will try to breed our Mourning Cloaks to see if we can keep a population going here. We have plenty of their host plants - willow, winged elm, and hackberry all grow onsite. But Mourning Cloaks have only been observed breeding once before in Florida, and that was in the far north. It will be interesting to see if we can get them to maintain their natural behavior here in Central Florida, and in captivity. We'll definitely keep you updated on our progress, but we don't expect to see any mating activity until cooler weather sets in at the very earliest.