Roosting female Orange-tip
Orange-tip egg on Cuckoo Flower
Female Orange-tip flying amongst Cuckoo Flower
Orange-tip head
Orange-tips really kicked off during the warm period this week. Watched females peruse the stunningly beautiful Cuckoo Flower and lay some eggs.
A special moment I'll never forget! A Large Tortoiseshell on my garden wall in Exmouth, Devon, basking in the evening sun. Without doubt one of the most exciting #butterfly experiences I've had! @savebutterflies.bsky.social @bcdevon.bsky.social
Don't panic everyone, the White-letter Hairstreaks are out again! I don't think I'll ever get tired of seeing this. Going to be checking for presence at some new sites this spring here in East Devon. All praise the UV torch! @bcdevon.bsky.social @savebutterflies.bsky.social
Timing and weather conditions are pretty helpful. It gets easier as you go along, learning more about what they like. Also pays to search around if you find one, as you're quite likely to find more nearby!
I think it might give me more joy to see larvae than adults. They're almost always more interesting..
Pearl-bordered fritillary caterpillars are coming along nicely in Devon. Spent the day at Haldon Forest, poking around pockets of violets along the broken edges of bracken litter @bcdevon.bsky.social @savebutterflies.bsky.social
A female Small Copper butterfly (Lycaena phlaeas) egg-laying on Common Sorrel (Rumex acetosa)
Two eggs of the Small Copper butterfly (Lycaena phlaeas) on Common Sorrel (Rumex acetosa)
Excited to see one of my PhD chapters now published! We found a trade-off between the quality of host plants and how warm they were for a declining grassland butterfly (Small Copper, Lycaena phlaeas) and looked at how this shaped their egg-laying choices: doi.org/10.1111/een....
This Green Dragontail has to be up there with one of the most ostentatious butterflies here in Borneo. The transparent sections of the forewing, and those tails!
After I spotted this extremely rare Allotinus brooksi butterfly in Borneo, I was amazed to find what looked like midges on its underwing. Not just one or two, but a whopping eight!
Not something I've ever seen before!
Super excited to find the incredibly rare, Allotinus brooksi in Sabah, Borneo!
Over 110 years after this impressive butterfly was first discovered and collected in Sarawak, it was spotted for the first time in 2021, here in Sabah!
The Five-bar Swordtail from Thailand. Lover of puddles.
Common Mapwing from the island of Koh Chang, Thailand. You can see where these stunning but flighty butterflies get their name. They're often found taking up nutrients from damp ground near open streams and waterfalls.
The immature stages of many Lepidoptera are known to fluoresce when showered with UV radiation - but what is the evolutionary advantage of doing this? An article, by Ben Greenaway, may explain why: www.dispar.org/reference.ph.... Purple Emperor pre-pupation larva and pupa photos below.
Between 2014 & 2016, I studied the Chequered Skipper in Scotland. One memorable encounter was watching a larva spin silk between the edges of a leaf. As silk dries, it contracts, and this pulled the leaf edges together to create a protective tube. Amazing! More at www.dispar.org/reference.ph...
Yes, it also works on Brown Hairstreak larvae. Doesn't work for eggs. Definitely wear UV protective glasses as they protect your eyes and make finding the larvae even easier.
This is fluoresence, not reflection. The caterpillar absorbs the UV and re-emits something in our visible spectrum. So in theory, it may function as a defence against predatory birds that can see in the UV spectrum.
New, innovative approaches have made finding and monitoring Purple Hairstreak larvae far easier. Using UV torchlight can help to better understand the ecology, distribution, population density and dynamics of this incredible species, amongst others!
Common Pierrot, Southern Laos
While in Southern Laos last week, I had a look around some Ziziphus jujuba on the side of a path and found some eggs and caterpillars of the Common Pierrot butterfly. Great fun!
This remarkable Lycaenid butterfly from Northern Thailand is the Fluffy Tit, Hypolycaena amasa. Just look at those outrageous tails!
Semi-open riparian forest and forest edge habitats here in Northern Thailand are amazing places for butterflies. The abundance and diversity is so refreshing to see.
Huge congrats Will! Fantastic news!
We've spent a few days hiking in Northern Thailand, and it's been so rewarding to stumble across some of the most stunning butterflies.
Behold, the imposing, Indian Purple Emperor. Here in Northern Thailand, they descend to take up minerals from the rocky banks of a stream, starting a fight with almost anything that passes by.
Common Pierrot, from Northern Vietnam. The adults are pretty chilled out and a bit less flighty than many other Lycaenids tend to be. Stunning little butterfly.
Certainly is.. the ants seem to completely avoid the adults
The adults often lay these amazing eggs amongst or near aphids and ants, to save the caterpillar time in finding its first meal. What an astonishing life-history strategy!
Here's the caterpillar of Bigg's Brownwing butterfly from Vietnam, which feed on aphids. They're often found being carefully chaperoned and inspected by ants, which farm the aphids for honeydew.
This is Bigg's Brownwing, Miletus biggsii, an amazing butterfly from Vietnam. As a caterpillar, they eat aphids!
Three Tawny Coster butterflies (Acraea terpsicore) settling in for the evening in Southern Vietnam.
