Orange Tip Egg

Orange Tip Butterfly egg (Anthocharis cardamines) on Cuckoo Flower (Cardamine pratensis)

An Orange Tip female (Anthocharis cardamines) lays a single egg on a Cuckoo Flower (Cardamine pratensis), the egg turning orange as it matures. As stated previously, only one egg is laid per plant as cannibalism is common in Orange Tip larvae. This is not a rare occurance as many lepidopteran larvae engage in cannibalism, either of eggs or of other, smaller larvae (1). This is often due to the larvae living in a confined space. Not so with the Orange Tip that actively predates its own type (2).

Orange Tip Butterfly egg (Anthocharis cardamines)

References:

1. Whitman et al., 1994. Carnivory in phytophagous insects, p. 161-205. In: Functional dynamics of phytophagous insects (Ananthakrisnan (Ed))
2. Zago-Braga and Zucoloto, 2004. Revista Brasileira de Entomologia 48(3): 415-420