Painted lady

[Ian Pratt]

This perfect specimen was found dead in the street and I took it home to photograph. It just shows what a beautiful butterfly it is.

[KeithS]

I also found a couple of fresh-looking but very dead ones in my garden recently. I don’t know what their natural life span is - I assume it must at least a few months if they are able to migrate from continental Europe and then breed over here. I had over a dozen individuals regularly visiting my garden at the start of the month but I am now down to just a couple (on the rare recent occasion the sun has shone). I am assuming they have just died off.

Incidentally, I understand that their preferred larval foodplant is thistle, but mine have studiously ignored a small stand of Spear Thistles in favour of some nearby nettles. I currently have four pupae waiting to emerge. Interested to see if they are Painted Ladies or Red Admirals. I can’t tell the pupae apart.

[Vince Massimo]

Hi Keith,

I understand that the lifespan of an adult Painted Lady is around 3 weeks.
As for the pupae in your garden, if you can post a photo, I should be able to give you an answer.

Vince

[Padfield]

It's unusual to find fresh. dead butterflies, except by the side of roads, where sadly they can be quite common. I think the specimen you have photographed, Keith, was probably struck by a car. I have seen even near misses wind butterflies so much that they cannot fly for quite a while. Further evidence that your butterfly was killed swiftly by something extraneous like a car is the position of its wings. When butterflies die 'naturally' they typically fold the wings the other way, beneath the body.

It's amazing to me how very few dead animals, butterflies or otherwise, one comes across in nature. Thousands must die every day in every meadow, park and wood yet it is all incredibly discreet - apart from those killed by human (or their pets') activity.

Guy

[Ian Pratt]

It's unusual to find fresh. dead butterflies, except by the side of roads, where sadly they can be quite common. I think the specimen you have photographed, Keith, was probably struck by a car. I have seen even near misses wind butterflies so much that they cannot fly for quite a while. Further evidence that your butterfly was killed swiftly by something extraneous like a car is the position of its wings. When butterflies die 'naturally' they typically fold the wings the other way, beneath the body.

It's amazing to me how very few dead animals, butterflies or otherwise, one comes across in nature. Thousands must die every day in every meadow, park and wood yet it is all incredibly discreet - apart from those killed by human (or their pets') activity.

Guy

I think you have confused me with Keith. I took the photos. Best wishes. Ian

[KeithS]

Hi Keith,

I understand that the lifespan of an adult Painted Lady is around 3 weeks.
As for the pupae in your garden, if you can post a photo, I should be able to give you an answer.

Vince

Vince:

Photo of salvaged pupae attached (nettles had to go but I picked through them to recover these, plus two Comma larvae that were moved to another patch that were not stinging the missus every time she went down to the compost heap!)...



The wing case of the one on the left is just colouring up, so not long to find out the ID of its occupant anyway...

[Vince Massimo]

Hi Keith,

All pupae are 100% Red Admiral.

Vince

[KeithS]

It's unusual to find fresh. dead butterflies, except by the side of roads, where sadly they can be quite common. I think the specimen you have photographed, Keith, was probably struck by a car. I have seen even near misses wind butterflies so much that they cannot fly for quite a while. Further evidence that your butterfly was killed swiftly by something extraneous like a car is the position of its wings. When butterflies die 'naturally' they typically fold the wings the other way, beneath the body.

It's amazing to me how very few dead animals, butterflies or otherwise, one comes across in nature. Thousands must die every day in every meadow, park and wood yet it is all incredibly discreet - apart from those killed by human (or their pets') activity.

Guy

I think you have confused me with Keith. I took the photos. Best wishes. Ian

Definite confusion. Ian takes much better photos than I do and I certainly don't deserve credit for them!....

With regards to my corpses, my garden is well away from the roadside so I don't think they were road-kill. However, both had their wings set back in the "reflex" position as you describe. I had not considered this before, but this is how I always find the occasional butterflies that get into our greenhouse, get caught in the shade netting and then roast before the missus or I can rescue them.

I think the reason I came across the dead un's is that there are just so many of the butterflies about. I found them blowing around on my tiled terrace around where the Buddleias are. I reckon they came down for one last sun-bathe before popping their tiny little clogs.

I still have more live 'un's then dead un's though. Caught these three regulars sun-bathing this morning....



If Vince M is right about the 3 week life span, I guess I need to enjoy these while I can!

[KeithS]

Hi Keith,

All pupae are 100% Red Admiral.

Vince

Thanks Vince. In a way I'm quite pleased about that because I've only seen the one RA as a regular in my garden lately, so hopefully he or she will have some more company soon! Only reason I thought these may be PLs is that the RA pupae (and older larvae) I have found in the past have normally made a fairly substantial canopy from nettle leaves to hide up in. These were just hanging under a leaf, peacock-style.

Looking at your photos in the species ID listings, I couldn't really see much of a difference between the two species as pupae, but I have never seen a PL pupa "in the field". I guess the differences are probably obvious once you've seen them yourself.

As I type this, however, I can see a PL still sniffing round my (reduced) nettle patch, so maybe they'll be some bounty there later...