[HELICONIUS] Butterfly behaviour at dawn

[Mathieu Joron]

Hi again,

Many thanks to all those who kindly answered my question about 
interesting dawn behaviours in butterflies. I thought I'd forward a 
summary of the answers (some were suggested by several people). Most 
behaviours may be a bit of a gamble to find and film, I suppose, but 
I'll forward those suggestions anyway. Some behaviours could be filmed 
in captivity, perhaps. Don't hesitate to send more suggestions in case 
anything else comes to mind.

Thanks,


-The Caligo can be territorial early in the morning and have fantastic 
twilight flight along forest edges. Males of some species have been 
documented to lek; fantastic to see a "fight" between patrolling and 
perching males.

-Pollen feeding in Heliconius. E.g. in Heliconius ethilla, at dawn, 
"100% female" (why?). In flat rainforest, first pollen visits are at the 
crack of dawn in the canopy.

-Departure from roost? "Very filmable", especially in some Heliconius.

-Transition from resting to taking flight in overwintering monarch 
butterflies in Mexico. When light breaks through and sunlight hits 
clustering monarchs, they will take to the sky in the thousands.

-Absolutely amazing twilight lek behaviour in Hepialus mohts (UK).

-Pupation and eclosion of adult butterflies happens in the early 
morning. Always great to film.

-Ecolosion and mating in the Heliconius pupal maters. "Could make some 
nice sequences for a TV program".

-Multispecies ithomiine aggregations feeding on PA nectar at the crack 
of dawn.


Best wishes,

Mathieu




On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 1:23 PM, Mathieu Joron <joron at mnhn.fr> wrote:
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> A journalist from the TV channel "Arte" here is asking me to suggest
>> interesting butterfly behaviours to film which take place during the very
>> early morning, ie the night to dawn to daylight transition.
>> They are preparing a series of documentaries about the early morning in
>> various ecosystems, including the Amazonian forests... and wanted to have a
>> focus on butterflies...
>>
>> Any idea??
>> Thanks for any suggestion! I'm not usually up early enough to be able to
>> answer this question!
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Mathieu
>>
>>

-- 
Mathieu Joron

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