Peacock
Aglais io
Print fact sheet (PDF)
Four enormous eyespots, and a hiss if you disturb it — this butterfly is built to bluff.
Unmistakable: deep wine-red wings each bearing a huge blue-and-yellow eyespot, and an underside so black and finely striated that a closed-winged peacock looks exactly like a dead leaf. Peacocks are common in gardens, woodland edge and rough ground around Dumfries, and are among the most conspicuous butterflies on late-summer buddleia.
Behaviour
The defence is theatrical. A resting peacock is invisible; disturbed, it snaps its wings open to flash four eyespots at once, and rubs its wings together to produce an audible hiss — enough to startle a probing mouse or bird. Adults hibernate in sheds, hollow trees and outbuildings. Caterpillars are jet black and spiny and feed communally on nettle.
When to see it
Quick facts
- Family
- Brush-footed butterflies (Nymphalidae)
- Wingspan
- 6–7 cm
- Status
- Native; common and expanding north
Photo by Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons