This regal butterfly has a short lifespan but is ‘a mighty metaphor for our relationship with beauty, and with nature’
It all begins with an egg half the size of a pinhead. After it hatches, the caterpillar spends 10 months on a willow, followed by three weeks pupating upside down. Out of this emerges a giant butterfly like no other in the UK.
The female purple emperor (Apatura iris) is “bold, brown and brazen”, while the male is “stunningly beautiful, with shimmering wings of iridescent blues, purples and violets”. With a wing span of about 8cm, the males are immensely powerful and will defend their treetop territories against all comers, including birds and even drones. Mysterious, elusive and enthralling, the beauty of this tropical looking butterfly is fleeting; it lives a mere 10 days. But in this time “it transports us into a world that is very different from the one we know”.
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