Mourning cloak
Nymphalis antiopa
Butterfly
Large dark-maroon butterfly with cream wing margins whose gregarious larvae feed in communal silken nests on the foliage of deciduous trees — willows, elms, hackberry, cottonwoods and aspen, birch, and mulberry. Unusual among North American butterflies, the adult overwinters by hibernating in bark crevices and under loose bark, so it is often the first butterfly seen on warm late-winter and early-spring days. Adults rarely visit flowers; they feed instead on tree sap, fallen and rotting fruit, and aphid honeydew, which makes mature host trees and brushy edges more important to this species than a nectar border.
Conservation
NatureServe rates the species Secure (G5); it is broadly common and not listed by the IUCN, the Xerces Society, or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Supporting it is about retaining native host trees and undisturbed overwintering cover (loose bark, leaf litter, woodpiles) rather than addressing any population decline.
Plants in the catalog
Larval host plants · 14
Elms are a well-established larval host for the mourning cloak butterfly, whose communal caterpillars feed on the leaves; the long-lived adults are among the earliest butterflies seen in spring.
Mourning cloak (Nymphalis antiopa, Camberwell beauty in Britain) is a Holarctic butterfly whose larvae feed on the foliage of broadleaved trees including Fagus.
The Holarctic mourning cloak (Camberwell beauty) uses a range of broadleaf trees including birch-family hosts; hornbeam is a plausible larval host within its broad woodland diet.
Mourning cloak (Nymphalis antiopa, the Camberwell beauty) is a Holarctic butterfly whose larvae feed on Betula across Europe and northern Asia — a genuine, documented host association for silver birch.
Birches are a documented larval host for the mourning cloak.
Range
Holarctic; in North America it occurs broadly from Canada south across most of the United States, though it is seen less frequently in the Deep South (Florida, Louisiana, Texas).