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A nice thread with lots of detail and no picture... that cannot be right!

Brown-veined Whites seen in a mixed group of butterflies on drying mud early in February, about halfway around the Mahonie loop near Punda.


Large view

Forgot to post this one. Taken in Mokala NP during our stop-over in December 2007.

Last night at around 6pm we were sitting in the garden when suddenly large numbers of the white butterflies appeared. These are the ones that fly east into Mozambique every year after laying their eggs. Isn't it a bit early for this mass 'migration' of white butterflies?

Those white butterflies are brown-veined whites (Belenois aurota), and they don't really migrate. Migrating species return to the area where they migrate from, like the wildebeest in the Serengeti / Masai Mara. Brown-veined whites often undergo a huge population explosion in the Kalahari area, and when they have stripped their foodplants (Sheppard's trees / Boscia albitrunca) completely, they start moving off. They basically fly until they drop dead or reach the sea, and plaster every suitable plant in their way when they do this. So there isn't really a fixed time for the "migration" that we know so well. I hope this helps.

We saw the brown-veined whites migrating early December already. We drove for about 100 km plus through such a "migration", all the way from Barberton up to Belfast. Some of the movements may be local movements, while the big movement is from the arid parts of SA. moving North east up to Zim and Mosambique.

Here is the thread.

I note this thread goes back to the 2006 "migration". That was a most exceptional year for brown-veined whites. There were literally millions upon millions of them all over Gauteng (and possibly in other places as well). I have never seen as many butterflies before or after. Wherever one looked there were swarms of butterflies.

I remember it particularly because I have a first aid class at the school where I matriculated and I allowed a "side-track" (which is rare in my teaching style) specifically so that we could talk butterflies. I like butterflies.

I have a sneaky feeling that this yearly migration may dwarf some better know migrations by sheer numbers ...

We have seen this phenomenon nearly every year but yesterday was amazing. If we blocked out the sun with a book we could see these white butterflies drifting ever upward towards the sun - and trailing behind many of them were gossamer threads! Any idea what these were? I could only surmise that they were threads from when the pupae were attached to the leaves and the hatching butterflies somehow still had some threads attached?

Can someone help with ID of these two types of butterflies? Seen in KTP in February 2010.



Many thanks!

Brown-veined White (Belenois aurota) - On the right.

This is the species well know for the annual migration to the north-east.

African Migrant (Catopsilia florella) - Centre

This is also a common migratory species.

Agreed

Beaut