Tag Archives: Peacock butterfly

Wild word: aposematism

25 Wednesday Apr 2018

Posted by in insects, nature

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Aposematism: noun; from the Greek ἀπό apo meaning ‘away’ and σῆμα sema meaning ‘sign’; a term developed in the 19th century, reputedly by Edward Bagnall Poulton (a British evolutionary biologist), for the bright colorations or conspicuous markings that creatures use to warn or repel predators. Typical examples are things like bright yellow frogs or orange-and-black-striped caterpillars, whose colours serve as a warning to potential predators that they taste bad or might even be poisonous, and, butterflies, like the Peacock shown here, with big bold eye-type markings that make them look larger than they really are.

180425 Aposematism Peacock butterfly

Getting the flutters

16 Monday Apr 2018

Posted by in insects, nature, spring

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Spring came to south Wales on Saturday at approximately 3.30pm and lasted about 4 hours. (It’s supposed to return again next week and stay a few days but, in the constantly changing contemporary climate, it pays not to count your chickens – or, maybe that should be, your rays of sunshine!) Amazingly, as soon as the sun appeared, so too did the butterflies. It was like a door had been opened – where had they been hiding, I wonder? In the space of about 30 minutes, I saw Peacocks and Commas, several never-settling Brimstones, a distant large-or-small White, and my first Speckled wood of the year. Oh, and a couple of Bee-flies – not butterflies, obviously, but the cutest wee flying things you ever did see so I’ve included one here. It was delightful!

180416 1 Peacock180416 2 Comma180416 3 Peacock180416 4 Comma180416 5 Speckled wood180416 6 Bee fly

March of the caterpillars

20 Tuesday Jun 2017

Posted by in insects, nature

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Perhaps that should really be MUNCH of the caterpillars because these little creatures are really the ultimate food processors. They eat ravenously, they ingest determinedly, they process interminably, and, yes, they pooh prodigiously. What a life!

170620 Oak eggar larva (1)

They can be covered in bristles: watch these ones as people with sensitive skin often get a rash from touching them because they can contain chemicals to deter predators from eating them. They can be dull to blend in with the vegetation on their favourite food plant. They can be patterned in startling colours and patterns, again as a warning to predators – ‘Don’t eat me!’

These particular caterpillars are the larvae of two moths and one butterfly. The hairy ones are the moths, Oak eggar (Lasiocampa quercus) and Yellow-tail (Euproctis similis), and the spiky black one with white dots is the rather surprisingly coloured caterpillar of the Peacock butterfly (Aglais io).