European Peacock butterfly Inachis io (Fr. Paon du jour).
Male insects are remarkably persistent. They have to be if they want to reproduce and mate with a passing female. It is not the males who decide if mating will take place, it is the females. One of the techniques that female butterflies and dragonflies of some species will use if they don't want to mate is to drop out of the air or off their perch as if they have suddenly died when approached too persistently by a male. The bemused male will hover above for a while, but the female is capable of maintaining the charade for quite some time, so eventually the male pushes off. The female makes a 'miraculous' recovery and flies off in the opposite direction. What she's done is not without its own risk though. She could find herself predated or injured whilst on the ground. But mostly it's an effective way to get rid of a sex pest. Twenty years ago a study of butterflies playing possum showed that in 27 out of 31 instances the female succeeded in avoiding unwanted male attention in this way.
Female Brimstone butterfly Gonepteryx rhamni (Fr. Citron).
If you are in the Touraine Loire Valley, watch out for the behaviour in butterflies such as the Brimstone Gonepteryx rhamni (Fr. Citron), European Peacock Inachis io (Fr. Paon du jour), Speckled Wood Pararge aegeria (Fr. Tircis), or Wall Brown Lasiommata megera (Fr. Mégère).
Wall Brown butterflies Lasiommata megera (Fr. male Satyre, female Mégère) engaged in courtship behaviour. The female, on the right, has dropped her wings. She's not playing dead in this instance, but offering an invitation to the male.
Female Speckled Wood butterfly Pararge aegeris (Fr. Tircis).
1 comment:
Never been able to photograph that, what a great shot.
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