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Orange Tip (Anthocharis cardamines)
© Nick Greatorex-Davies
The Orange Tip is a familiar spring butterfly throughout most of Britain and Ireland and is seen most frequently in gardens, along hedgerows, riverbanks, damp meadows and woodland edges. Like the Green-veined White the caterpillars feed on a range of wild Cruciferae but are especially associated with Lady's Smock (Cardamine pratense) and Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata) (For further details on this species see http://www.butterfly-conservation.org/).
Family: Pieridae
Status: Stable
Status details:
Status since 1976 is Stable with an increase of 17.2%
Status over the last 20 years is Stable with a decrease of -17.7%
Status over the last 10 years is Stable with a decrease of -11.7%
Back to the topLog collated index plot
This chart shows the index of abundance (LCI = Log Collated Index) over time. It shows fluctuations in populations from year to year, and is scaled so that the average index over the whole series is equal to 2 (horizontal line). For greater detail about how this index is derived, click on the green question mark above.
Trend description:
Although the trend for this species is positive it is not significant. Note the narrow log scale on the graph compared to other species: the Orange Tip is the most stable butterfly for which collated indices are produced varying relatively little in abundance from year to year.
Distribution...
This map shows the distribution between 1995 and 1999. Data is derived from the Butterflies for the New Millenium dataset via the NBN Gateway (www.searchnbn.net).
View the distribution on the NBN GatewayPhenology...
Phenology plot
Phenology plot
This chart shows the average number of butterflies seen on transects between Arpil and October. The black line gives average counts over the full BMS series (1976 to date) and the red line gives the average for the last year.
Abundance...
Abundance
This map shows symbols for the mean abundance at transect sites, with the size of symbol reflecting the level of abundance. Means are over all years.
Coverage
In total, Orange Tip has been recorded from 842 transects in the Butterfly Monitoring Scheme. Of these, annual indices of abundance have been calculated from 950 sites, with an average index of 12 individuals per site.
For 428 of these sites, Orange Tip has been recorded well enough to calculate annual indices of abundance in 6 or more years, allowing trends to be calculated.
In 2006, 5408 individuals were recorded from 538 sites, producing annual indices at 301 of these.
