Female Common Blue - Odd behaviour
Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2024 7:05 pm
I watched a female Common Blue through my close-up binoculars this afternoon flitting low to the ground and was expecting it to lay an egg. It landed on a plant with very sharp spines on the leaves (Bristly Oxtongue) and seemed to be testing the leaf with its ovipositor. Strange I thought as I didn't think it would use THAT as a foodplant. Instead of producing an egg, the ovipositor seemed to get caught up in the spines and the butterfly then walked around in a circle - still attached. It carried on going round in circles until it had pulled quite a length of its (presumably) reproductive organs out. I tried to get a bit closer and the butterfly tried to take off, but was still stuck. It finished up flapping around under the leaf still attached by its "bits" and I thought for a minute a crab spider had grabbed it from underneath. I turned the leaf over and the butterfly freed itself - there was no spider there. The butterfly immediately flew to a second Bristly Oxtongue flower and repeated the process of dragging the still-exposed tail end around more sharp spines. When it moved on to a third plant and again repeated the process, I had to video what it was doing on my phone. I can add this video if thought useful, but what was it up to? Thinking about it now, I have my own idea, but has anyone else ever seen this and what conclusions did they come to?