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Earlier this morning, I was showing my son the photos I shot Friday of a Red Admiral butterfly (Vanessa atalanta rubria) resting on a Virburnum leaf. He remarked that the butterfly didn't have any "eyes" on its wings, a common butterfly marking to confuse predators into attacking away from the butterfly's vital body parts.
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dan
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As we wondered why the Red Admiral was marked the way it is, my son noticed that the two orange bands on its hind wings looked like facing caterpillars, with orange, black-spotted body segments and and a pair of blue eyes. I couldn't find any information online about the evolution of the Red Admiral's markings, but it makes sense that it has developed these hind wing "caterpillars" as a decoy for predators much like the more common "eyes" on other butterfly species. It seems a lot less harmful to the Red Admiral if a bird takes a bite out of its hind wing than any other part of its body.
Any entomologists out there want to shed any light on the subject?
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