wings has gray striations, with the same pale-yellow edges. They are a part of the family Nymphalidae, called the brush-footed butterflies due to their hairy front legs. The species does not display any obvious sexual dimorphism. Reproduction and development Mating system Mourning cloak butterflies display polygynous mating behavior, where an individual male will mate with multiple females throughout one breeding season. He will either use a display site to attract females or fly around searching for females that are more widely dispersed in a process called scramble competition polygyny. This means that male mourning cloak butterflies primarily lek, or display territorial behavior, in which they settle and defend desirable areas, such as those that either offer increased probability of females or those that provide ample amounts of good resources. The more desirable territories will be able to increase the males' chances of reproductive success. Thus, lekking maximizes the males' ability to attract the most female butterflies, either by being in a prime location to view them or to have a location that females would want to visit. Locations of choice typically include sunny perches near ravines, wood margins, parks, gardens, lakes, ponds, around stream edges, or canyons in which males can perch and defend for multiple days. These locations can be more than an area of 300 square meters. Given the male-male competition for mating, this strategy offers males an ideal location in order to maximize success in territorial protection, and thus mating. Despite the fact that butterflies, particularly the mourning cloak butterflies, have an affinity for perches on high objects, they are not known to display any hilltopping behavior, where male butterflies fly up to perch on hill summits. Spring marks the beginning of their mating season, when female mourning cloaks will find a host plant and begin to lay their eggs. Adult mourning cloak butterflies can first be seen in late spring through early summer. They then aestivate for the summer, where they will enter into a "dormant" state similar to that of hibernation. In concordance with this is the mourning cloak butterflies' exhibition of diapause, which is a suspension in development in response to certain conditions, such as environmental stimuli. They will break diapause once some, though not all, of the butterflies start to migrate through September and October. They then overwinter, and then restart their mating cycle throughout the spring, from April through June. Life cycle