Take care nights and days



Euplagia quadripunctaria, the Jersey tiger, is a moth of the family Arctiidae. The adult flies from July to September, depending on the location. It flies both in the daytime, when it can be found feeding on various flowers, as well as at night, when it is attracted to light.

The insects advertise their defenses with aposematic bright coloration, their orange wings that can hardly be seen at rest when their stripes are enough to help them hiding. In addition their ultrasound signals help nocturnal predators to learn to avoid them and can jam bat echolocation.
They tend to fly close to one of their preferred host plant the Eupatorium cannabinum, like pictured here.

The caterpillar is polyphagous, feeding from September to May on nettles (Urtica) and raspberries (Rubus), dandelion (Taraxacum), white deadnettle (Lamium), ground ivy (Glechoma), groundsel (Senecio), plantain (Plantago), borage (Borago), lettuce (Lactuca), and hemp-agrimony (Eupratoria). The insect overwinters as a small larva.

This butterfly is widely distributed in Europe from Estonia and Latvia in the north to the Mediterranean coast and islands in the south. It is also found in West Russia, South Urals, Asia Minor, the Near East, Caucasus, South Turkmenistan, and Iran. Individuals are known to migrate northwards from their regular breeding grounds during the summer. Large groups of adults of subspecies E. q. rhodosensis can be found on occasion aestivating (sheltering from the summer heat) on Rhodes, in a place that has become known as the 'Valley of the Butterflies'.

Other butterflies of our valley: here

Sexy butterfly

The silver-washed fritillary (Argynnis (ex Dryas) paphia) is deep orange with black spots on the upper side of its wings. The male possesses scent scales (androconium) on the upper side of the forewing that run along veins one to four. The scent produced from these scales is a pheromone and attracts females and helps to distinguish it from other species.

Adults mainly feed on the nectar of bramble, thistles, and knapweeds, and also on aphid honeydew. It is pictured here on Eupatorium cannabinum. Its preferred habitat is thin, sunny, deciduous woodland, especially oaks.

Unusually for a butterfly, the female does not lay her eggs on the leaves or stem of the caterpillar's food source (in this case common dog violets), but instead one or two meters above the woodland floor in the crevices of tree bark close to clumps of violets. When the egg hatches in August, the caterpillar immediately goes into hibernation until spring. Upon awakening, it will drop to the ground, and feeds on violets close to the base of the tree. It will make its chrysalis amongst the ground vegetation, and the adults will emerge in June.

The silver-washed fritillary is found over much of the Palearctic Eco zone – Algeria, Europe, temperate Asia and Japan. It was in decline in the UK for much of the 1970s and 1980s, but seems to be coming back to many of its old territories.

Other butterflies of our valley: here