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By Matt Schuth
Naturalist
In March when the woods are a brown-and-white patchwork of autumn leaves and melting snow, we may be surprised to see a flickering of wings dancing through the trees. It is the Mourning Cloak, the first butterfly to emerge in the spring.
If we find it basking in the dappled sunlight of the forest, it displays its black wings surrounded by a cream- yellow border with a row of sub-marginal sapphire gems. The Mourning Cloak hibernates as an adult, sheltering in hollow logs and woodpiles.
The Methuselah of the butterfly world, the Mourning Cloak lives up to 10 or 11 months. This butterfly has one brood per year (which emerges in late-June); feeds and then goes into estivation (summer hibernation) in July and August; wakes again and feeds through the fall before overwintering. I have seen them as late as November at the Arboretum.
These hardy creatures remind us that warmer, greener days are ahead.
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