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I've disturbed a few mating pairs of Meadow Browns/Common Blues lately, and I've noticed that on every occasion only one butterfly actually flaps its wings and flies (the other just gets dragged along).

Is there some kind of process that goes on here? Is it the male who flies or the female? Do the roles reverse depending on the species? Is one sex generally a better flier than the other?

Does anybody care (except me)?

I had a look today and of three pairs I saw in flight (well enough to sex) it was in each case the female who led. The pairs were: great sooty satyr, silver-washed fritillary and wall.

Now you've mentioned it I will clock every flying couple I come across and see if males do the leading too.

Guy

Seen this observation before on this site,,,, maybe the female is trying to get away. I think that it is a fact of nature that the female of any species is often an unwilling or hesitant participant in the act of cop. I'm not basing this observation on personal experience,,,,, am i?

padfield wrote:I had a look today and of three pairs I saw in flight (well enough to sex) it was in each case the female who led. The pairs were: great sooty satyr, silver-washed fritillary and wall.

This is most unusual in the Silver Washed Fritillary Guy.

Felix.

Felix wrote:
This is most unusual in the Silver Washed Fritillary Guy.

Felix.

You mean I must be mistaken! Well, I might be - my mental picture of it now is not so clear that I could repeat this on oath in a court of law. I am certain about the great sooty satyrs, though, because that pair was flying in the open and the male is a completely different colour from the female. I'm pretty confident about the walls too, but now you've sown the seeds of doubt I can't summon up a clear picture of how I knew at the time. I was confident when I saw them!

What is the norm, Felix? Is it different for different species?

Guy

EDIT - I did get a picture of the walls, but sadly only after they had landed:



The female is on the left. Is it possible to draw the conclusion that because her wings apparently enclose the male's, she was the one flying? Or might each set of wings be closed and simply next to each other, not one inside the other?

To answer my own question, I don't think any conclusion can be drawn from the wing positions after landing. I have here two very ancient pictures (taken with my 35mm SLR, which died of old age in 2004) of the same couple of silver-washed frits on the same leaf (so no flying in between) and in one picture the male's wings are inside the female's and in the other the female's are inside the male's.





Guy

Hi Guy and Felix,
In Silver-washed Fritillary I've seen both sexes 'take the lead', but in the majority of cases it seems to be male. This year my SWF 'mating highlights' were a valezina dragging a male down the ride, and a male dragging a 'normal' female from bramble blossom to bramble blossom, in the most ungentlemanly manner .
Neil

Indeed. It is unusual to see a female SWF leading the male (I didn't disbelieve you for a moment Guy, I merely pointed out that it your observation was uncommon). There was something about this on another thread.

Male SWF's regularly go about their business feeding up with a female in tow. Occasionally the male will flutter his wings, presumably dousing the female in pheromones just to keep her interested!

There is some speculation that female butterflies receive more than simply sperm during the mating process. Recent studies with Grizzled Skipper suggest that there is also a nutritional content delivered to the female within the spermatophore. This would also go some way to explain why some species mate several times given the oportunity even though a full complement of fertile ova can be produced from the one initial pairing.

Felix.

padfield wrote:I had a look today and of three pairs I saw in flight (well enough to sex) it was in each case the female who led. The pairs were: great sooty satyr, silver-washed fritillary and wall.

Now you've mentioned it I will clock every flying couple I come across and see if males do the leading too.

Guy

Interesting Guy
Whenever I see Silver -washed it's unusual but the male who leads in flight, quite unlike the others....