www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

A friend has sent me phone snaps of a butterfly visitor to their garden around the start of the school summer holidays this year.

The pictures don't stand a lot of zooming but would you say Hypolimnas bolina ?

Must have been an escapee from a tropical butterfly place.

I agree with your ID Zigzag. They are a staple of your average butterfly house.

Yes - Hypolimnas bolina. As you say, the poor thing must have made a doomed bid for freedom. Most butterfly houses have male and female bolina so he would have had a more fulfilling life if he had stayed at home. But freedom has its own rewards.

Guy

Thanks as always chaps.

I'm assuming this must have escaped from the butterfly gardens place on Ditchling Common - not far from the Black Hairstreak enclave.

Maybe with increased visitor numbers at the start of the school holidays, the escape committee switched from tunnel digging to congregating near to the entrance/exit.

Still a very pleasant garden surprise though.