Vanessa atalanta Sightings

Some photos of red admirals (Vanessa atalanta) that we often see around the Beebe Lake/Botanic Garden area.

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It’s been a long time since we simply posted about some of the butterflies we see around town rather than rearing notes of species we rear. We used to do so quite frequently back in Albany, California and when we first moved to Ithaca, but we haven’t as of late. But, today there happened to be a red admiral (Vanessa atalanta) flying near the Beebe Lake/Botanic Garden area that landed enough times to get some decent photos of. We’ve seen these quite frequently this summer around this area, along with Polygonius species (interrogationis, common, or progne?), crescents, and skippers, though we haven't really gotten a chance to photograph these since they are so small and quick.

We’ve always been very curious as to what the atalantas and Polygonius are utilizing as hosts here, because whatever it is it must be relatively common for us to be seeing the butterflies so frequently. Back at home, we also had a lot of atalantas and satyr commas (P. satyrus) which used stinging nettles (Urtica dioica) and invasive pellitory (Parietaria). We tried looking for plants in the nettle family (Urticaceae) around the areas here that we see the butterflies but never found any (though maybe we did but never knew since we aren’t really experts at identifying them). It would be great one day if we could find out what they are eating so we could look for larvae, but alas we seem to be in the dark as of now.

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Alan Liang​
​Alan Liang is a student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York pursuing an undergraduate degree in entomology. He is co-owner and a main contributor of the Liang Insects blog and photographs.

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