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Species of the Month - May 2015 Orange Tip Anthocharis cardamines
The Orange
Tip butterfly is a familiar sight from mid-April to mid-June, being most
numerous in May. The males are unmistakable with their
orange-tipped wings.
The
females do not have the orange wing-tips and can easily be confused with
species such as the Green-veined White and Small White, but the female
Orange Tip has a more rounded wing-tip than those species, and the
markings on the underside are quite different. Normally when a
female Orange Tip is seen there are males present as well.
The
underwing pattern of an Orange Tip. This is a male, but the female
underwing is similar. The Green-veined White does not have
blotches like this but has dark greenish-black lines along the veins,
while the Small White and Large White have a uniformly pale underwing.
The
usual foodplant of the Orange
Tip in our area is Cuckoo Flower or Lady's Smock (Cardamine pratensis).
Females lay their eggs on this plant and males visit the plant looking
for females. Both sexes also drink nectar from the flowers.
Eggs are sometimes laid on other plants of the cabbage family.
Female on Cuckoo
Flowers with attendant male
Please send in your Orange Tip sightings
using the form below, or email sightings@lnhg.org.uk
with the details if you prefer. If you are not sure of the
identity of your butterfly, please send a photo to sightings@lnhg.org.uk,
or put one on the
LNHG Facebook page. By filling in this form you agree that the information contained in this form may be collated and disseminated manually or electronically for environmental decision-making, education, research and other public benefit uses in accordance with the LNHG data access policy. Your email address will not form part of the record and will not be passed on to anyone.
Carl Farmer
Note you can still send in
records for past species of the month. Here is the list of species
we've had so far:
Apr 2015 - Marsh Violet
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