Once mated, females lay eggs on specially chosen goat or grey willow leaves in stands of sallow scrub. The males’ habit of roosting high in trees makes them susceptible to wind damage, which physically shreds their delicate wings, so the windy nights recently won’t have been good news for this year’s brood. They can be pretty boisterous, and are known to chase off other butterfly species and even birds too. For example, Roman and Byzantine emperors wore cloaks dyed with vivid ‘Tyrian purple’ from slimy mucous of marine snails!įlashing their purple assets, the male emperors congregate around prominent trees in the peak flight period of July in order to compete for the females. Purple is a dye relatively rare in nature, hence its association with luxury, royalty and the word ‘emperor’ throughout civilisation. Like the kingfisher blue, the purple of their wings is a trick of physics rather than a true colour. The male emperor’s wings have an unmistakable rich iridescent purple sheen when they catch the light. Both species and sexes have a dark wing surface with white dots and streaks, but emperors have a small orange circle.
Underwings of both species are boldly coloured in brown and white, but the emperors have a large orange ‘eye’. You’ve either got to get a good look at a purple emperor or be very familiar with the nuances of behaviour to distinguish them from another relatively rare high-flier, the white admiral. A strong flier, it spends much of its time out of our eyeline in the tops of oak trees. With a wingspan of up to 9.2cm, it is our second-largest resident butterfly (the biggest is the swallowtail). Once a widespread inhabitant of British woodlands, the purple emperor is now largely restricted to southern England. If you want to find a purple emperor ( Apatura iris) – arguably the UK’s most majestic butterfly – you’ll need something that stinks to high heaven and some binoculars, for this is no ordinary butterfly. Normally when you go looking for butterflies, you might take a net and a guidebook.
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