Peacock Butterfly

Wings closed, the peacock is a dead leaf, near black and bark-plain. Wings open, four staring eyespots flash out, and the switch between the two is the whole defence: vanish, then startle.

It can also hiss. By rasping its forewings and hindwings together the butterfly produces an audible warning, startling enough to give a curious mouse or bird a moment's pause in a dark hollow.

Peacocks overwinter as adults, folded up in hollow trees, log piles, and garden sheds, which is why one warm February afternoon can produce a butterfly seemingly out of season, months before the first brood.