Admiring the Red Admiral

One of the first butterflies we see in the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden in midwinter is the Red Admiral, Vanessa atalanta.

Yes, this butterfly overwinters as an adult. It's picture-perfect with black wings, red bands and white spots. And on a picture-perfect day in midwinter, you may see it.

Or as butterfly guru Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus, says on his Art's Butterfly World website: "One of the most frequently seen butterflies in midwinter at low elevation, and often very common in the urban Bay Area, the Red Admiral occurs all around the Northern Hemisphere. It is multiple-brooded, overwinters as an adult, and may undergo altitudinal migration in the Sierra (where it is generally uncommon)."

"The larval hosts are all members of the Nettle family, Urticaceae, including not only the familiar Stinging Nettles (Urtica holosericea and U. urens) but the tiny-leaved ground cover Baby's Tears (Helxine or Soleirolia) in moist, shaded gardens and the climbing urban weed Pellitory (Parietaria) in the Bay Area. The larva is solitary, in a rolled-leaf shelter."

Shapiro has been monitoring butterfly populations in Central California since 1972. And the Red Admiral is just one of them.

If you visit the UC Davis Arboretum a picture-perfect day, you must may get the opportunity to admire the Red Admiral...This one was on a Roldana aschenborniana (Golden Light Senecio).