This pretty little moth looks white at first glance, but it isn’t, exactly. There’s a small black spot near the middle of the wing; a slightly checkered border; and a row of black marks with little blue spots near the outer edge of the hind wing. The caterpillars feed on duckweed, so the adults are always near water. This one was just by the boardwalk over the main pond at Gunnersbury Triangle.
Ah, a Comma butterfly on the path. Ew, but what’s it doing? Those are flies. Greenbottles. With red eyes. They’re buzzing around a sticky mess. Dog or Fox poo. And, yes, the Comma has its proboscis extended, it’s feeding. On the poo, by preference. No better than the flies!
Actually, quite a few species of butterfly are attracted to sticky messes on the ground; entomologists brew up their own concoctions with beer and treacle (and who knows what else) to attract Purple Emperors down from the tops of their Oak trees.
Somehow this all seems surprising, perhaps because we can’t quite believe that anything so beautifully dressed as a butterfly could have such dirty habits. But then again, being attractive and well-dressed doesn’t guarantee that humans are doing nice things, either.