Photo © 2005 Jim Jung and licensors. All rights reserved.

Mourning Cloaks

Mourning Cloak butterflies are one of the most interesting and unique butterflies in our fauna. These are forest and woodland butterflies that favor forest openings in June and July which is where and when I see them (although I have a sneaking suspicion that this is secondary habitat for this species and that their true home is dry savanna - Ed.).

Mourning Cloaks begin life in April and May as egg masses laid on - among other species - Elm, Hackberry and Willow trees. The caterpillars are gregarious and hang out together in groups defoliating whole limbs and gorging themselves to maturity which takes a month or so. They enter their chrysalis stage and emerge after a short time in June and July as adults. In our area there may be a second, smaller, hatching in the fall but this is unclear.

Photo © 2005 Jim Jung and licensors. All rights reserved.

As adults they flutter off and feast on carrion, nectar, animal feces, overripe fruit and sap. As winter approaches they seek out sheltered locations (knot holes, hollow trees, rock crevices) in which to hibernate and sleep the winter away. However even in the depths of December and January you can sometimes encounter them on warm days on sun-warmed roadkill and occasionally fluttering through the woods. Mourning Cloaks can live up to eleven months so as the spring sun rides higher and the land begins to warm the butterflies surviving the winter mate and lay their eggs and the cycle begins again.

I suspect that like the Monarch and Swallowtail clan this is an extremely distasteful species to birds and other predators since these are large, very showy insects. At any rate they seem reasonably abundant in our area in the right habitat although like most species in our area Mourning Cloak populations have declined drastically in the last century due to habitat loss.

As one of our largest and showiest butterfly species the Mourning Cloak is worth a trip to the woods to see.

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