www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Another splendid life cycle video from VarWild.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOMKfopJkgY

Note that some of the captions relating to the instar are not always correct.

Vince

Thank you for sharing this video, Vince.
The Red Admiral that emerged from pupa, near the end of the video, looked female to me.
If identifying Red Admiral sex by body (abdomen) shape, it might be easier to tell a relative size and shape difference with freshly emerged subjects (that were not "egg spent" or migration spent adults).
Also, it might have been noted, that the "floating" white dot on the upper forewing nearest the red band, tended to be (and this was only a general comparison), larger on a female, than on a male Red Admiral. That white dot appeared to vary in size considerably, between different individuals.
If my above comment was correct, does it mean that some literature goes "out of date", that insisted both sexes were identically marked?
And if so, might it tempt someone with old interests to lie?
#Stock Photos

Kind regards.

Hi Philip,

I think the possibility of sexing this species from their upper-side forewing spots is an interesting idea and would merit more research. However the general consensus seems to be that the sexes are superficially similar and cannot be easily differentiated, especially from their undersides or in flight. Of course there are some behavioural differences which can provide some clues. Books on most natural history subjects will go out of date sooner or later, as new research is published or climate change has an effect and I cannot see why anyone would want lie about changes in data.

Vince