Mourning Cloak Butterfly

Pavel Kirillov, Wikimedia Commons

Nymphalis antiopa
I saw my first butterfly of the season and it just happened to be my favorite - the Mourning Cloak!

Mourning Cloaks are very dark and are described as purple-black, but they appear red in the sun. They have what looks like yellow lace with bright blue ribbon around the edges of their wings. They are also rather large, up to four inches across!

Butterflies have specific host plants. These are plants where they lay their eggs and that the caterpillars can eat. In the case of Mourning Cloaks, these plants are willows. Adult butterflies apparently prefer oak tree sap as their food of choice.

Mourning Cloaks can be found across most of the US, so keep an eye out near oak and willow trees. However, they are incredible at camouflage. When their wings are closed, they blend in perfectly with tree bark, so your best bet to find them is when they are in flight.

Why do I love them? They are goth butterflies! If Victorian funerary practices were a butterfly, it would be a Mourning Cloak, as evidenced by their common name. My goal is to wone day make a cloak the same coloration as a Mourning Cloak Butterfly. Of course, now I have no idea where to get fabric.

If butterflies aren't really your thing and you are more into spiders and bats and things, the Mourning Cloak may convert you.

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