Focusing on the familiar: butterfly wings

It's a while since I've written anything (workload, the evil flu of doom etc etc), so I thought I'd resume service with a look at something that everyone's at least broadly familiar with, even if not in detail - butterfly wings. You may know that the insect order Lepidoptera (butterfles & moths) means 'scaly wing', and that's because the wings are covered in many tiny scales that effectively work like pixels to make up the overall pattern.In December a very fresh looking peacock butterfly Inachis io was roosting in our house, presumably hibernating, so I took a couple of pictures.

Peacock butterfly Inachis io

One of the 'eyes' in the wing pattern - individual scales are clearly visible.

Near the base and front edge of the wing - again you can see individual scales.

I could put the wing under a microscope and get more detail, but I didn't want to disturb the butterfly while it was roosting - instead, there is a light microscope image here, and electron microscope images (which I can't produce!) here (x1000) and here (x5000). The last one is important becuase it shows one way that scale colours are formed.

Browns and blackish colours are formed by melanin pigments in the scales - the same type of pigment that we have in our skin, hair and the irises of our eyes. However in most cases the brighter colours - reds, greens, blues and so on - occur because of iridescence caused by the microstructure scattering light in different wavelengths depending on the precise fine structure. If you have a microscope, the scales brush off easily without damaging the wing (you could use a small soft paintbrush then transfer them to a slide) so why not have a look at the scales - if you don't want to disturb a live butterfly or moth, you can wait until a dead one turns up. Happy scaling...

A tiny clue that looks like poo

Sometimes a seemingly innocuous observation can lead onto an interesting ecological story... A couple of days ago while collecting bramble and raspberry leaves for my stick-insects, I noticed a small black-and-white cocoon attached to the underside of one of the leaves.

Black-and-white cocoon, 6mm long

Although the occupant has clearly emerged as an adult, I wondered if the distinctive black-and-white cocoon might be identifiable, at least to family level or similar. A quick web search made it clear that this was the pupal cocoon of an ichneumon and it didn't take long to find out that the pattern (which maybe camouflage it as bird-dropping or piece of mould?) is characteristic of the genus Hyposoter (subfamily Camploplaginae).

At least 15 species of this genus can be found in the UK and they parasitise the caterpillars of various butterflies and moths such as the Lymantriidae (tussock-moths), Pieridae (butterflies - whites and yellows) and Lycaenidae (butterflies - coppers, hairstreaks and blues). They do so by the female wasp laying an egg in the host caterpillar, piercing it with her ovipositor. Once hatched, the wasp larva develops inside its host which shrinks, becoming a hard,  brittle shell - effectively mummified. When ready to pupate, the wasp larva spins a cocoon inside the larval skin (or in some cases the host skin splits and the wasp pupates outside) and this creates the black-and-white patchwork pattern - it takes about a month from the egg being laid to a new adult emerging.

I don't know which Hyposoter this is and I doubt that it's possible to tell from just a cocoon. However, one of the British species (H. ebeninus) has been filmed going through its life cycle, and this is certainly a candidate for the species here as the adults match ichneumons I have seen but not identified (though that isn't a reliable indiactor - they are a diverse and tricky group to ID), and parasitises the cabbage white butterfly (Pieris brassicae) which is common here. Again, this is not enough for an identification, but it is something I can look out for next season. In any case, I hope that's an interesting little ecological tale from a passing observation.

Close-up of the Hyposoter cocoon showing silk threads attached to the host's mummified skin.