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Scarlet tiger foodplants
Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 4:43 am
by chitin
Not a butterfly I know but prettier than many ! and dayflying !! Had an explosion of Scarlet Tigers on Comfrey in my garden and they ate the plant to stalks. Are dispersing now and have them on Blackthorn and Pulmonaria ( I think that's its name its the purple plant in flower now with "milk drops" on the leaves) as well as the usual Nettle and Bramble
Re: Scarlet tiger foodplants
Posted: Fri May 15, 2009 12:14 am
by Cotswold Cockney
It even looks like a Red Admiral in flight at first glance ~ When I first saw that other bright dayflying Tiger, the Jersey flying in Devon, I thought they were Painted Ladies... Long time ago...
Another coincidence, along with my schoolfriend, I found my first Scarlet Tiger Larvae back in 1954 when I was aged twelve! I thought they were Red Admiral larvae ( no accurate larvae ID books back then even if you could afford them ) as they were feeding on Nettles... and Brambles and easy to find as they are quite showy. We were looking for Duke of B's on the Cotswolds in the Haresfield area that day ~ they were quite numerous.
During the afternoon, an eccentrically learned looking chap like some Colonialist out of India dressed in khaki shorts ,shirt and hat carrying a kite net emerged from the nearby woods. That was my first meeting with Dr. Bernard Kettlewell who did the Melanistic/Industrial research on the Peppered Moth. He correctly IDed those Scarlet T. larvae for us....
Both species are still present in good numbers in the same place over fifty years later ....
ETA: .... also found that day ~ larvae and adults of the Bloody Nosed Beetle ~ feeding on 'Goosegrass' AKA Cleavers IIRC. A large Bedstraw, Goosegrass is a good foodplant for anyone rearing larvae of the Humming Bird Hawk Moth.
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