Elementary entomology elementaryentom00sand Year: 1912 GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATIONS OF INSECTS 63 The life of the spiny elm caterpillar (Euvanessa antiopa). plet-e-metamorphosis. What boy does not remember, when the first warm days of sprhig hired him to a tramp in the woods, that a large, dark purple, yellow-bordered butterfly, usually found sipping the sap from a newly cut tree stump, was the first to greet him ? It is one of our commonest butterflies, and we have translated its German name of Trmiermantcl to 'mourning cloak butterfly,' though it is also often known as the Antiopa bu
Elementary entomology elementaryentom00sand Year: 1912 GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATIONS OF INSECTS 63 The life of the spiny elm caterpillar (Euvanessa antiopa). plet-e-metamorphosis. What boy does not remember, when the first warm days of sprhig hired him to a tramp in the woods, that a large, dark purple, yellow-bordered butterfly, usually found sipping the sap from a newly cut tree stump, was the first to greet him ? It is one of our commonest butterflies, and we have translated its German name of Trmiermantcl to 'mourning cloak butterfly,' though it is also often known as the Antiopa butterfly, from its specific name. It is a most cosmopolitan insect, occur- ring throughout North America as far south as Mexico and Florida, and is found over northern Europe and in Asia. Egg laying. Unlike most butter- flies it hibernates over winter, which accounts for its early and often some- what battered appearance in spring.^ When the leaves of the elm and poplar are nearly expanded, the female may be found laying her eggs upon the twigs of elm, poplar, and willow. Standing with wings spread, she de- posits the eggs in clusters around the twig, as shown in Fig. 81, rt-. In about two weeks the small, blackish cater- pillars emerge through round holes eaten out of the upper surface of the eggs, and crawl to the nearest leaf, where they range themselves side by side, with their heads toward the margin of the leaf. Feeding in this position, they nibble the green surface of the leaf but leave the network of veins untouched. Larva, or caterpillar. They continue to feed side by side for about a week, marching in processions from leaf to leaf as the food supply is exhausted. Each little caterpillar spins a silken thread 1 We are indebted, for much of the hfe history, to the account given by Dr. C. M. Weed in Bulletin 67, New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station. Fig. 82. Eggs of the spiny elm caterpillar, or mourning cloak butterfly, on willow twig (Photograph by Weed)
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