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Lunchtime Photo

This is a red admiral butterfly at the Schmetterling Haus in Vienna. Here is the life of a red admiral:

Male red admirals are territorial and perch during the afternoon until sunset....Males patrol their territory by flying around the perimeter between 7 and 30 times per hour. On average, territory holders interact with intruders 10 to 15 times per hour.

When another male encroaches on a red admiral's territory, the resident chases away the intruder, often in a vertical, helical path to disorient or tire out the intruder while minimizing the horizontal distance it travels from its perch. The red admiral immediately returns to its territory after chasing off encroaching males. Time spent patrolling increases as number of the intruder interactions increases.

Female red admirals will mate only with males who have a territory. It's important!

May 15, 2024 — Vienna, Austria

6 thoughts on “Lunchtime Photo

  1. mudwall jackson

    Fun fact: as beautiful as the red admiral may be, you'll find references to it as the Butterfly of Doom, because it was especially abundant in 1881, the year Tsar Alexander II of Russia was assassinated.

  2. RiChard

    Farther north we get Lorquin's Admiral (and some years the Red). Usually in summer one takes over my garden and patrols up and down the length of it, and confronts most birds and people. When a fully-grown "bull" butterfly lunges at you, that's when the primal terror kicks in, lemme tell ya.

    Sadly we just had a really poor butterfly year, never did see one.

  3. Victor Matheson

    I hate to be that guy, but this is actually a Painted Lady butterfly (or a close relative). The Red Admiral is similar in size and shape and also in range, but clearly very distinct from the picture here. (The Tortoise Shell butterfly is a third clearly distinct butterfly common in the US that is similar in size and shape.)

    Upon a bit a further review, I think this might actually be an American Lady instead of a Painted Lady, but I am not good enough to tell the difference between those very closely related species without seeing both next to each other.

    Here are some pictures of an actual Red Admiral.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanessa_atalanta

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