Butterflies of Keele
Camberwell Beauty Nymphalis antiopa
The Camberwell Beauty is a large and striking butterfly rarely seen in Britain and Ireland, but which occasionally arrives in large numbers. Most of the individuals seen here probably migrate from Scandinavia where it is widespread and sometimes locally abundant. When they arrive, the adults are known to visit gardens where they are particularly attracted to buddleias. In the autumn they are attracted to rotting fruit.
It is named after its first reported sighting in Britain, near Camberwell in south-east London, in 1748.
There is only a single record for Keele involving one feeding on rotting apples in Church Plantation in the early 1970s.