Red Moth Or Butterfly

[pastafreak]

Are there any of the above common in the UK? I saw what appeared to be a small, completely red one yesterday...in daylight.

[Buenchico]

Butterfly Conservation (which is the leading British charity dedicated to the protection of both butterflies and moths) doesn't list any all-red species on its website. The nearest might be a cinnabar moth:
https://butterfly-conservation.org/moths/cinnabar

If you're interested in trying to identify butterflies and moths in future, you might like to bookmark these two links:

https://butterfly-conservation.org/butterflies/identify-a-butterfly

https://butterfly-conservation.org/moths/identify-a-moth

[johnk]

There is an all red moth it has a yellow and black caterpillar and is conspicuous because it tastes horrible to birds so a bird will only ever try one and never again. The caterpillar lives on ragwort. I can't remember the name of it.

[Chipchopper]

Tiger moth was my first thoughts.

[rowanwitch]

Cinnabar moth

[daisypotter]

rowan's got it right.

[pastafreak]

I'm pretty sure it wasn't a cinnabar. I could see no black or other pattern on it. It seemed to be solid red/crimson/scarlett. I'd thought it was a bit of red paper fluttering in the breeze when I caught it out of the corner of my eye.

[Chipchopper]

I wonder if it could have been a skipper that you saw, its a reddish colour butterfly that folds its wings back, like a moth.

[daisypotter]

I said rowan was right because there are no red butterflies in UK (unless you saw an extremely rare visitor) and people often mistake cinnabar moths for butterflies, but I could be wrong I guess.

And cinnabar moths do come out in daylight.

[daisypotter]

I've just googled cinnabar moth and the pics that came up make them look a lot different to the ones I've seen, there seems a lot more black on the ones in the pics.

[Chipchopper]

Cinnabar moths are black with red spots, whereas burnet moths have similar markings but smaller. I always got the two mixed up.