Caterpillar ID help

[micthemini]

caterpillar at work web size.jpg (85.71 KiB) Viewed 422 times

Could you help me ID this caterpillar please?
There were a lot of them, found in nettles, munching away.

Many thanks.
Michelle

[Denise]

Hi Michelle and welcome to the site.
I think that you have a Red Admiral there.
Well done
Denise

[Dave McCormick]

Hi Michelle, it looks to me more like a Small Tortoiseshell caterpillars. I don't think red admiral ones have the yellow lines, but I know Small Tortoiseshell ones do.

[Cotswold Cockney]

You mention "a lot of them". Red Admiral Larvae are usually solitary whilst Small Tortoiseshell ( Pictured) and Peacock larvae ( Velvety Black ) are colonial, separating only when near to or, fully grown.

Red Admiral Larvae are stouter in build, more secretive and leave their nettle leaf tent structures they make very infrequently during the daytime so are rarely seen unlike their colonial close relatives. They feed within the relative safety their leaf tent structures held together with larval silk.

I have observed the females laying on nettles of all three species. Both STs and Ps lay batches of ova on the terminal growing fresher green shoots at the top of the plants.

RAs lay a single ovum again on the fresher, younger leaves near the top of the Nettle stems.

Colonial larvae .... maybe something in this safety in numbers mullarkey...