Butterflies

[Jan Whetnall]

Where do butterflies go in the winter?

[gazzawazza]

Heaven. Aaaah.

[Cetti]

This is from 'Butterflies of the British Isles' by J.A. Thomas.

Every butterfly goes through 4 very different stages during its life. It starts as an egg which hatches to produce a caterpillar. This feeds and grows before changing into a chrysalis, from which the adult butterfly later emerges.

Before dying, female adults lay many eggs to produce a new generation. Some species take a whole year to complete this cycle, others fit in two, three, or even four generations between Spring and Autumn, but as Winter approaches, all butterflies must hibernate or die. Hibernation can occur in any stage of the life cycle, but the stage is always constant for a particular species.

The Red Admiral, Painted Lady and Clouded Yellow cannot survive a British Winter and migrate to North Africa or the Meditteranean.

[LukeMc]

to put that that ^ abit shorter, they die!