www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

During this evening's Autumn episode of BBC1's The Great British Year (available here), a Red Admiral was shown feeding on a fallen plum. The accompanying commentary was: "She might well die when the cold strikes but she's already laid her eggs, so a new generation will emerge next year".

This was news to me. Is this species known to be able to survive a UK winter in a stage other than adult, or is Auntie misleading us again?

Paul

While Red Admirals have been known to overwinter in an immature stage (I've witnessed this myself when several larvae survived the entire winter in a south-facing and sheltered position), this should be considered exceptional and I'm not aware of any records of eggs overwintering. Red Admiral also have no natural diapause.

So yes, this is the beeb getting it wrong again. I don't know why they don't ask someone who knows their stuff when putting their programs together!

Cheers,

- Pete

I'll have to tell a friend of mine who is a photographer and very involved in seahorse conservation. They got the stuff about seahorses wrong too in an earlier programme and he was mightily miffed when all they had to do was ask. He's had a grudge ever since.

Its a very pretty programme to look at though

in one they claimed a winter moth caterpillar hatching when I think it was a purple hairstreak.

ChrisC wrote:in one they claimed a winter moth caterpillar hatching when I think it was a purple hairstreak.

I agree Chris. In fact, I "tweeted" them this very comment on 9th October:

UK Butterflies ‏@ukbutterflies 9 Oct
@BBCNature Pretty sure your Winter moth egg (next to an oak bud) is actually a Purple Hairstreak butterfly egg! Nice footage nevertheless.

and their reply was:

bridget appleby ‏@bridgetappleby 10 Oct
@BBCNature @ukbutterflies I will pass this to our entomologist who identified the eggs. The caterpillar shown hatched out of the egg shown

I think they need a new entomologist!

Cheers,

- Pete