www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Cotswold Cockney wrote:So many diligent birds it's a wonder any larvae manage to escape their predatory attentions and produce adult insects next summer. Nature.. red in tooth and wossname ...

I agree, the odds seem mercilessly stacked against them! But in the end, so long as fecundity = mortality all is well. When one exceeds the other, either nature intervenes with checks and balances to restore equilibrium or the species is headed for tragedy. Only one creature on the planet deludes himself he can escape this inviolable law ...

Guy

Padfield wrote:

Cotswold Cockney wrote:So many diligent birds it's a wonder any larvae manage to escape their predatory attentions and produce adult insects next summer. Nature.. red in tooth and wossname ...

I agree, the odds seem mercilessly stacked against them! But in the end, so long as fecundity = mortality all is well. When one exceeds the other, either nature intervenes with checks and balances to restore equilibrium or the species is headed for tragedy. Only one creature on the planet deludes himself he can escape this inviolable law ...

Guy

Fecundity. A good female Purple Emperor can lay up to five hundred ova all fertile from one mating ... in captivity. Probably a healthy wild female would lay several hundred. Only a few need to reach maturity as adults the following summer and carry on the species.

A female Purple Emperor I raised from the egg of a captive bred female from a previous captive generation I paired with a very virile bred male who was well past his sell by date in cosmetic appearance. That male was into its fourth week as an adult. It was not his first pairing with a virgin female for that male either. That female laid in excess of four hundred ova and every one was fertile. Imagine trying to feed so many larvae even with fairly extensive well prepared resources by amateur standards. I maintained one hundred of those successfully to produce imagines the following summer. I spread the surplus around other butterfly breeders and placed around one hundred in their grand parents original locality. Along with others from another strain of the species thus ensuring a good mix. If only half a dozen survived in the wild after winter I would guess that approaches the ratios in nature. Far easier to find pre-hibernation larvae on the Sallows than to locate some in the following Spring. Huge reduction by that time.

Even so, quite a task to provide suitable hibernation sites for so many even when small. When suitable sites are at a premium, this sort of thing results :~



By the way, during mid-winter, to my eyes most hibernating A. iris larvae appear brownish grey to match their surroundings. When viewed under a x10 magnification pocket hand lens, they are in fact mainly green. Well they were when I looked at them. This suggests the colour change is structural rather than a change of pigment. I suspect the larvae alter their skin surface in some way to break up the way light is reflected thus appearing to change colour. All clever stuff..

By the way, that Sussex locality was a wonderland for the PEs back in the day. Lots of lovely mature Oaks interspersed within the clearings with seedling Douglas Firs planted. Some thirty five years later I visited the same locality. What a difference! Massive mature conifers and most unsuitable for many PEs. However, when they are clear felled leaving a few mature Oaks and conditions are right for the sallows to spring up, I'd bet a few quid they'd recover their numbers. There are plenty in other woodlands not many miles away. To illustrate the scale of change, here's my Rover 620ti when I revisited around 1996 nearly three decades after I knew the site at its wonderful peak of PE activity :~



Nothing lasts forever.

Cotswold Cockney wrote:Fecundity. A good female Purple Emperor can lay up to five hundred ova all fertile from one mating ... in captivity. Probably a healthy wild female would lay several hundred. Only a few need to reach maturity as adults the following summer and carry on the species.

I'd always used 200 eggs as a rule of thumb, implying 99% mortality (on average, one male and one female needed to replace the parents). If the true number is higher then a proportionately smaller percentage must survive.

I have found iris caterpillars that hibernate on old twigs and in knots to be darker and grainier than those hibernating on young shoots or near buds, which sometimes remain solid green all winter.

Back to the white admirals, these two photos of the same larva were taken almost exactly an hour apart today (on my way out and on my way back). In that time the caterpillar guzzled a huge amount of his leaf - and yesterday's leaf was completely gone. I have seen iris cats indulge in similar gluttony just before setting off to pupate - perhaps in anticipation of a period of wandering/searching without food.


(leaf almost entire)


(leaf eaten to nearly halfway)

Is this the last I will see of him?

Guy

When I checked the honeysuckle at lunchtime today I thought the white admiral cat had packed up and left. The leaf he had half eaten in an hour yesterday was completely eaten and he was nowhere to be seen:


(same leaf as in last post)

I searched under leaves and still found nothing, except, a little bizarrely, this marbled fritillary cat:





It wasn't big enough to be pupating - barely an inch long. So I gently offered it some bramble, in case it had somehow got stranded on the wrong foodplant - but instead of gratitude it showed merely irritation and remained exactly where it was. So I left it there.

The marbled fritillary caterpillar was still there when I took Minnie for her evening walk. Then, I also found the white admiral caterpillar, continuing its rape of all the foliage on the honeysuckle bush. In the last 48 hours it has eaten at least three complete honeysuckle leaves and I think rather more: it has laid one entire twig completely bare.



When I passed later, on the way back, it had moved on to a different set of leaves.

To close, a very distant shot of a female black woodpecker. These birds are quite common round here - I hear their liquid trills pretty well every time I go out in the summer - but they are also very elusive and rarely hang around for a photo. I will keep my eyes on this dead pine in future, in the hope I can get a better picture.



Guy

I had to work this morning, but as soon as I was free zoomed down the hill with Minnie and caught the train to Geneva, intending to follow up on last week's male poplar admirals with some females, which usually emerge a little later than the males. Last year I visited the same site a week or two after some friends had seen only males and I saw only females. Unfortunately, about 5 minutes after we left Geneva station one of MInnie's backpack straps broke and the mission had to be aborted. I was very lucky this didn't happen either while I was bombing down the mountain or when I was 15 km into the Geneva countryside. Anyway, the upshot is, no female populi for you today.

The good thing is, Minnie has a new backpack, which she loves. We managed to get back to the local pet store just before it closed at 17h00 and got a much better quality bag with proper stitching and sturdy material. It should have cost CHF 120 but when the girl saw Minnie in it she said, 'Mais elle est trop mignonne!' and gave us 20% off.


(Note: when I'm cycling, Minnie wears her harness, which is secured inside the backpack - she can't jump out. I wear my own backpack on my front, so the whole setup is a little like a sandwich board)

The white admiral cat has moved onto a new twig and a new set of leaves:



He is getting visibly fatter by the day.

Guy

One mystery solved. The marbled fritillary cat I found on the underside of a honeysuckle leaf, and which turned its nose up at my proffered bramble, has moulted, sprouted a forest of orange spines and become a beautiful, fifth instar silver-washed fritillary cat.

Prior to moult:



Now:





It must have climbed the honeysuckle to moult - which makes sense for a caterpillar that feeds on low-growing violets. Now it will return to the undergrowth - perhaps to climb the honeysuckle again when the time for pupation comes round ...

Guy

The marbled fritillary cat I found on the underside of a honeysuckle leaf, and which turned its nose up at my proffered bramble, has moulted, sprouted a forest of orange spines and become a beautiful, fifth instar silver-washed fritillary cat.

Your research continues to throw up surprises Guy.
May I suggest that this previously unknown phenomenon be known as Padfield Transmogrification? (PT)

Jack

I think this is a very rare phenomenon, Jack, and doubt there will be much call for the new expression, flattered though I am!

The real lessons are:

a) When you get complacent you make silly mistakes. I should have confirmed the marbled fritillary ID but I just assumed I knew what they looked like (to be fair to me, they look pretty much like that 4th instar cat).

b) Don't interfere with nature except in extreme situations. I was tempted to remove the errant cat to a bramble leaf but fortunately I didn't, presuming either it knew what it was doing or it had been invaded by the body snatchers, who knew what they were doing (fritillary cats are often parasitised).

Guy

Yesterday, a friend e-mailed in some excitement to say she'd seen her first ever purple emperor near a popular swimming/picnicking site in the valley. Her photos showed a lesser purple emperor. So, as I had time free this afternoon I nipped down with Minnie to check the site out. Soon, we were enjoying our first emperor of 2015:











This is under 30 minutes cycle ride from my house - so a great discovery, thanks to my friend.

Guy

Excellent again Guy.

Does Lesser PE have any migratory tendencies? I see that it apparently occurs in Brittany, but no doubt in low numbers. That's a mere 180 kilometres from Cornwall.

Jack

I'm not aware of any migratory tendencies in emperors, Jack. There is one extremely doubtful UK record (it's definitely lesser purple emperor, but bred up from a larva).

On the continent this species often occurs near human activities, frequenting picnic sites, public toilets, motorway service stations &c. But there have to be extensive forests nearby. If climatic conditions were right it could probably survive in the Home Counties.

Guy

Appetising stuff, Guy, particularly your first image showing the full array of purple.

Here's hoping you see many more (including, perhaps, one that you have followed as a larva for the past few months).

HI Guy,
That Lesser Purple Emperor is certainly a beauty, and i notice that he enjoys the same cuisine as
the Purple Emperor. Here in Sussex we should be seeing HIM. very soon, and it is usually a pleasant
social occasion too, whilst awaiting an audience, meeting like minded people.

Best wishes,
TREVOR.

Thanks David and Trevor. Yes, a foretaste of a summer of emperors, I hope! Lesser purple always appears a little earlier but purple is not usually too far behind.

I'm far too old and stuffy for FaceBook but one of the gap year students at school spotted this picture, posted by a third party whom I don't know:


(cropped and reduced from the original)

What? He'd never seen a dog in a backpack before?

The picture has no exif data, so I don't know when it was taken, but it was before Minnie got her super new backpack. Perhaps someone will post a more recent picture of her in that, so I can see what it looks like on the road!

Guy

I had a lot of work to do today but it was the sort of work I can do on a train, so Minnie and I nipped down to Aigle first thing and caught the 08h16 to Domodossola, in Italy, arriving 10h17. The main target was Hungarian glider but Italy trips are always interesting for more than just their targets.

It is a long slog up a steep hill to what I call my main glider site so we broke the haul at a small nettle-tree site. Just one, rather tatty nettle tree butterfly was flying ; but more significantly, almost the first thing I saw was a Hungarian glider. This is several kilometres from the ‘main’ site and there is no foodplant here. I got a single, poorly focused and distant shot :



Also flying at that site (including on my return trip) were small skippers, purple-shot coppers, red admirals, marbled whites, heath fritillaries, assorted whites, a brimstone, loads of chequered blues and a few holly blues.










(Jack Russells have no fear of heights - when we were near cliff edges I attached her to me just in case ...)

Some of those pictures were taken on my return trip, back down the valley. On that visit, just as I was packing the bags to go, another nettle tree butterfly landed near me. I just had time to get the camera out again, catch a lousy shot, and it was off. But this one was fresh. I understood the morning one to be a leftover from the spring brood. This one is clearly summer brood. That leaves open the possibility of nettle tree butterflies meeting their own children – something that doesn’t happen often in the butterfly world.



At the main glider site, there was chaos. Part of the site had been razed and raised to make a car park and my usual walk along the other side of the river was entirely overgrown. Nevertheless, we waded through the river, fought our way through the undergrowth and found a few patches of goatsbeard, the foodplant of Hungarian glider. We also saw a couple of gliders, though neither stopped. Then we noticed a good patch of foodplant, with gliders circling around it, back on the other side of the river.



At this point the river was thigh deep and fast-flowing and I didn’t think I could get across with Minnie and my camera, so I left Minnie and waded through myself. She was not happy !



Even though I was only a few metres away, she tried to cross herself, with nearly disastrous consequences, so I left the camera, waded back through, picked her up in one arm, and took her to join me. It was all quite an adventure for Minnie but in the end the gliders wouldn’t stop gliding and I got just one, very poor shot of one of them. It didn’t matter at all. To stand there in the sun with Neptis gliding around my head was just wonderful.



We retraced our steps, crossed the river again (twice), and had a look in one of the meadows. There, heath, knapweed, dark green and high brown fritillaries were all flying. This is the form cleodoxa of high brown – something I very rarely come across :


(the upperside looks normal)


(the underside is special)

There were scarce coppers and purple-shot coppers in the same meadow.



Before getting the train back to Switzerland we checked out some rough ground in Domodossola for short-tailed blues, which I hadn’t seen yet this year.





A surprise grayling turned up there too:



Then, out of the blue, a lesser purple emperor form clytie, suddenly flew in, landed and left. No chance for great shots but here’s the record :





Finally, again after I had just packed everything away and put Minnie in her bag for the ride to the station, another nettle tree butterfly flew in, landed briefly, and flew off again. I’m not aware of any nettle tree on this rough ground – I guess this is just a flighty butterfly.

Guy

Have to say, Guy, that the High Brown upperside looks abnormally scantily marked. If I saw one like that on my local site I'd be very excited indeed!

As for the underside, well that is quite amazing.

You're right David - the upperside of cleodoxa does lack some spots near the apex. This is true on all cleodoxa I've seen.

Today's individual was very mobile, constantly moving from flower to flower and spinning on whichever flower it was on, and it was almost impossible to get pictures. Years ago, in Spain, I found a much more amenable cleodoxa male coupled with a normal female:



The form is theoretically found throughout the range of high brown fritillary but is commoner in the south and east and much rarer in the north. I'm not sure it's ever been recorded in the UK, though there is an aberration labelled pseudocleodoxa in the Cockayne collection, taken in England.

Guy

Never tire of seeing your very interesting pictures Guy. Please keep 'em coming. I for one can never have too much of a good thing ...

Single-sex dimorphism occurs in many species. Even here in the UK, up on the nearby Beechwoods on the Cotswold Hills, both forms of the female Silver-Washed Fritillary occur in near equal numbers. Indeed, some summers I see more valesina than typical A.paphia females.

Both forms of the Lesser Purple Emperor A.ilia ilia and A.ilia clytie sometimes occur in equal numbers in my breeding cages. By selectively breeding you can produce both types. It's in the genes.,

In the Oriental far East, one of my favourite "Emperors" is found. It was formerly known as Apatura ulupi. The under side of the female is truly beautiful and the upperside is like A.iris. :~



The male is completely different. So different, anyone could be forgiven for thinking that it is a different species. At first glance, it resembles the neotropical "Gulf Fritillary" on the upper surface. To see them paired is an odd experience. :~



There's another form of the male. Never had one in my bloodstock strain, but in the wild Far East I'm told there's a second form of the male which more closely resembles the female colouration and pattern on both upper and lower sides of the wings.

Fascinating subject and I suspect there are many throwback recessives in a wide range of species which may have been the predominate form in the very distant past.

Cotswold Cockney wrote:Never tire of seeing your very interesting pictures Guy. Please keep 'em coming. I for one can never have too much of a good thing ...

The same applies to your pictures, anecdotes and wisdom, CC. Your passion for the Apaturinae is infectious. I looked up ulupi in my books (all of which refer it to the genus Chitoria) - a beautiful and striking butterfly. I don't know if you know Bozano's Guide to the Butterflies of the Palearctic Region. Nymphalidae Part IV deals exclusively with the Apaturinae, copiously illustrating all Palearctic species and forms (http://www.nhbs.com/title/182481/nympha ... tic-region). Sadly, publication of this series seems to be slowing down to a trickle and I wonder if it will be complete in my lifetime. A shame, as it's a fantastic resource.

Summer has arrived in my local woods! Today, for the first time in 2015, Arran browns were flitting around the rides:



This one is interesting, in that the forewing spots on the upperside are blind. They are just visible in this shot:



Curiously, large ringlets are often pupilled in Switzerland (usually blind elsewhere in Europe) while Arran browns are not infrequently blind.

Summer brood green-veined whites were on the wing:



And despite the fact I have found not a single pupa, white admirals were gliding along the rides.

Woodland browns have been flying for a few days now:



I didn't get any better shots of this one because as I was stalking it I put up a male purple emperor! The race is really on now to find some pupae!! I was going to do a big search at the end of June, when I thought the maximum number would be at that stage but it seems to be an early year so I should do it sooner.

Guy