Daily Quiz

[Piers]

Good guess Denise (the ant association) but I'm afraid it's a different species...

Felix.

[Pete Eeles]

Purple Hairstreak.

Cheers,

- Pete

[Piers]

Pete, you're close....

[Martin]

It's Green Hairstreak.

[Piers]

It's Green Hairstreak.

Such confidence!

and why not - you're spot on Martin!

Your turn, make it a killer..!

Felix.

[Martin]

Which butterflies caterpillers feed exclusivly on Water Dock.

[Dave McCormick]

Large coppers Caterpillars

[Martin]

Large coppers Caterpillars

Great work Dave...over to you.

[Dave McCormick]

As far as I know there is only one, but which resident species (not migrant) do we have that shares its name with a unrelated Australian butterfly?

[Piers]

There is a delias that the Ausies call a Wood White, which is odd 'cos if it's the species that I'm thinking of it's quite brightly coloured... (please correct me if I'm wrong here Dave - this is stretching the limits of my memory!!)

Felix.

[Charles Nicol]

is it the dingy skipper ( Toxidia peron ) ?

charles

ps there is a splendid ( erm,.. bonzer ) web-site for Australian butterflies... http://www.purvision.com/butterflies/

[Dave McCormick]

not one I was thinking of, keep trying. The DIngy Skipper is not is name, its "large dingy skipper or dingy grass-skipper" so its not it.

[Denise]

Cabbage White?

[Pete Eeles]

I can find 2:

Lucia limbaria : Small Copper
Trapezites argenteoornatus : Silver Spotted Skipper

Cheers,

- Pete

[Dave McCormick]

Lucia limbaria- It is also known as the "Grassland Copper" and thats not the one I thought about.

Trapezites argenteoornatus - Silver spotted skipper (I'll give you that Pete)

The answer I had was Delias aganippe, "Wood White" it looks nothing like wood whites we know of. see here: http://www.purvision.com/butterflies/De ... index.html also known as "Spotted Jezebel "

well I got to think harder about this in future, over to you Felix, the wood white was right!

[Piers]

Thanks for the link Dave, that's the one I was thinking of. I spent some time in Australia some years ago between leaving education and becoming a grown-up(!) and dimly remembered that there was a butterfly named The Wood White down under...

Ok, here goes. I may live to regret asking this question as there could be contention:

Which British butterfly can be said to have the largest number of different larval food plants?

By this I mean different genera of plant, rather than a butterfly that will happily lay it's egg on twenty different species of fescue grasses!

I also specifically mean largest number that are selected by the butterfly to lay on in the wild (so for example the British Swallowtail would not be the correct answer, for while the larvae will happily consume any number of plants in captivity, from Dill to Celery, the adult butterfly invariable only lays on Milk Parsley in the wild).

Sorry to make it complicated...

Felix.

[Pete Eeles]

Green Hairstreak.

Cheers,

- Pete

[FlyByWire]

Crikey that Australian Wood White looks like it's been at the crayons. Cool pics!

-Mike

[Piers]

With in excess of thirty larval food plants recorded in the wild in Britain it is indeed the Green Hairstreak!

Clearly far too easy!!

Well done Pete, over to yoooooo.

Felix.

[Pete Eeles]

With in excess of thirty larval food plants recorded in the wild in Britain it is indeed the Green Hairstreak!

30! Really!!! I didn't know *that*! Put it down to a "good guess"! What's your source?

Anyway - I'm running out of questions given the clever lot that inhabit this forum

Here goes - aside from being our largest native butterfly and being restricted to the fens of Norfolk, why is the Swallowtail unique among the butterflies of the British Isles?

Cheers,

- Pete