[2] The larvae (caterpillars) are polyphagous, feeding from September to May on nettles (Urtica), raspberries (Rubus),[3] dandelion (Taraxacum), white deadnettle (Lamium), ground ivy (Glechoma), groundsel (Senecio), plantain (Plantago), borage (Borago), lettuce (Lactuca),[4] and hemp-agrimony (Eupratoria).

[1] Large groups of adults of subspecies E. q. rhodosensis can be found on occasion aestivating (sheltering from the summer heat) in Petaloudes, on Rhodes, in a place that has become known as the Valley of the Butterflies.

[5] Euplagia quadripunctaria is widely distributed in Europe from Estonia and Latvia in the north to the Mediterranean coast and islands in the south.

"[3] Since then however it has spread more widely in Devon and Cornwall,[1] and has recently been seen more frequently in southern England, especially on the Isle of Wight, in northern Kent,[7] and south London.

[8] They have been seen regularly and in numbers every year in London first discovered at Devonshire Road Nature Reserve in Forest Hill since 2004, so it is probable that they have established a breeding colony.