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THE LEPIDOPTERAN VIRGIN HUNTRESS
21/11/2017

The summer of 2017 has been a bumper year for virgin huntresses. They have been everywhere, on over-ripe fruit, on Hylotelephium (formerly Sedum) spectabile, Michaelmas daisies, buddleias, ivy blossom and almost any flower offering a nectar sip – you can hardly have missed them. We counted nineteen simultaneously feeding on fallen pears in our Worcestershire garden on 5 October. I am, of course, talking about the red admiral butterfly, Vanessa atalanta – Ἀταλάντη, Latinised as Atalanta, was “the virgin huntress” of Greek mythology who was loved by the hero Μελέαγρος (Meleager) but unwilling to marry. Vanessa is probably derived from the name of the mythological Greek god Φάνης (Phanes) who emerged from the original silver cosmic egg of the universe, the world-egg of Time and Fate.
Although a few red admirals may overwinter in southern Britain and there are summer broods (feeding on nettles) from early arrivals, this beautiful butterfly, a member of the brush-footed butterfly tribe, is a migrant. It arrives here from France, Spain and North Africa, sometimes in tens of thousands, as it has in 2017, when Butterfly Conservation recorded 73,000 in its three-week count in September (and there have been many more up to the autumn).
This brilliantly coloured insect has a camouflage trick, though: its under-side is dark, making it cryptic when it roosts with folded wings on tree trunks as is its habit. This superb illustration is from my treasured copy of Morris’ butterflies of 1864.