Tiny Tuesday - A Common Copper

Yesterday I blipped a monarch butterfly, today I have another orange butterfly but one that is only a fraction of the size of the monarch.

The common copper butterfly is a native of New Zealand and has a wingspan of only 2-3 centimetres. They are quite abundant on the pohuehue vine but with their tiny size and their rapid, jerky flight they are quite hard to capture. They look like orange sparks flying until you are lucky enough to find one settled and feeding.

This is a male with double black lines along the veins.

I would love to see a caterpillar - about 15mm long full grown, they apparently look like velvety green slugs. Adult butterflies only live for about 2 weeks.

The Maori name for them is pepe pora riki