The Orange Tip
Orange Tip on Aubrieta
Wander round our garden after breakfast and before you know it, the day is gone.
That butterfly on the aubrieta. What’s it called? No prizes for guessing. The orange tip.
The male that is. The female is hardly noticeable. With her mottled green and white camouflage she passes herself off as cow parsley. She may not be beautiful but is highly desirable. Much sought after, she is in full control of mating. Once she has made her choice, she rejects other would be suitors with a rejection signal pheromone.
She is equally fussy about her eggs. She only lays on the hidden underside of buds on specific plants. For her caterpillars to hatch, they must have the right food.
Garlic Mustard
Turns out she’s very partial to garlic mustard and there’s plenty of that around since we stopped getting the lawnmower out.
Garlic Mustard Flower
When hatched, the larva consumes its egg shell before making a start on the host plant and its seed pods. If more than one egg has been laid on the same host plant, the larva first to hatch will eat the others.
The adult orange tip drinks flower nectar. Hence breakfast on the aubrieta, named in honour of Monsieur Claude Aubriet, the French Royal Botanist and artist.
Post by Pamela, photography by Mark.
