Butterflies flutter by

IF YOU were outside at any time last weekend you may have noticed them. You actually could not help but notice them. Scores, if you were outside longer then hundreds, even thousands of white butterflies passed through (and presumably around) Vryheid over the last few days. They are brown-veined white butterflies (Belenois aurota) and they were on their annual migration from the west coast of South Africa to Mozambique and beyond, to Madagascar. Strictly speaking, it is not really a migration in that the butterflies do not return. Swarms of these butterflies head north-east from where they hatched along the coast between Cape Town and Namibia. They were also reported in Gauteng over the weekend, so there is an extended cloud of them moving across an vast area towards the Mozambique border. The females apparently lay eggs along the way, thus ensuring a next generation, but they are “on the road to nowhere” which in this case is Madagascar, where if they make it across the sea, they will land exhausted to die. The sea crossing is probably helped by the fact that they can fly up to a kilometre up in the air. Weather conditions play a major role in deciding the timing of the life cycle, but it was usually seen running from late November to mid-February The Brown Veined White (Belenois aurota aurota) is one of the most common butterflies in Southern Africa. It is as exceedingly abundant insect, especially in arid open country, this butterfly has a low, fairly strong flight, which is frequently interrupted when it visits flowers and muddy puddles. This butterfly is on the wing throughout the year. They are, apparently, sometimes joined by other species of butterfly, and one Vryheid residents reports seeing a number of “long tailed” butterflies among the brown-veined whites over the weekend, and in the vicinity of Market Square. What this other species was is not known.