Thanatosis, or apparent death, is when an animal pretends to be dead! Lizards do it, opossums do it (‘playing possum’) and butterflies do it! The idea is to fool the pursuer into thinking you are dead, and hope that they will then leave you alone! Female butterflies sometimes do it to avoid the unwanted attentions…
The courtship behaviour of the silver-washed fritillary, Argynnis paphia (Heliconiinae, Argynnini), is described in most books or websites about butterflies. Here’s how I described it in my book on Courtship and mating in butterflies. The male …. performs a unique pursuit flight, swooping down beneath the female, then darting up in front of her, until…
In this blog, I have delved into the voluminous research on the common fruit fly, or vinegar fly, Drosophila melanogaster, and tried to produce a readable, hopefully entertaining, fly-level perspective, of their courtship behaviour. I am not an expert on this species, but I have immersed myself in the literature whilst researching a book…
Marsh fritillaries, Euphydryas aurinia (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae), are one of my favourite butterflies. The beautiful tapestry of yellow, orange and black colours on their wings creates a stunningly attractive pattern, especially when contrasted against the bright pink colour of a flower. The beautiful appearance of butterflies is, I think, even more attractive when we discover something…
Capturing animal behaviour in a photograph (or even a video) is never easy. The wonderful natural history programmes we see on television, have often taken the film-makers months, if not years of work to obtain! Interesting behavior in nature, can be short-lived, fleeting, and is therefore, quite difficult to capture sometimes; but it is very…
I have come across these Argiope orb-web spiders, a number of times, with their characteristic woven crosses on their webs. These ones photographed in northern Thailand, are either the Multi-coloured Saint Andrew’s cross spiders (Argiope versicolor), or the very similar to Garden cross spiders (Argiope pulchella); the two were once thought to be the same…
Courtship in pierid butterflies, such as brimstones, is usually fairly brief, but can nevertheless, feature some interesting interactions. I happened across a short, unsuccessful courtship in this pair of common brimstones (Gonepteryx rhamni) in NW Spain (Galicia). There are relatively few accounts of courtship in this species; however, Adrian Hoskins – informative as ever –…
Meadow brown (Maniola jurtina) butterflies, must, I think, be one of the most common and widespread butterflies in Europe. I am surprised therefore, not to be able to find any photographs of courtship behaviour in this species. The excellent UK Butterflies website states that: “Courtship between male and female is brief. The male showers the…
Females butterflies are usually a lot more choosy than males. They produce eggs, and have more resources invested in each one; compared to the millions of tiny sperms that males can produce and put about! So for females, some of whom will only mate once, it is imperative to choose the best male, in terms of…
When I first saw this pair of Wood white butterflies in Spain, I did not realise that they were mating, i.e. in copula, as they were at right angles to each other. But it soon became apparent as I took a series of photographs highlighting both the male and female. The sexes can be told apart…
