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Female mating
Male Euphydryas editha exhibit polygyny and may mate with multiple females. Females, on the other hand, mate once or occasionally twice. Newly eclosed females remain motionless on the ground in low vegetation for about an hour after eclosion while their wings harden. During this time they cannot fly or reject courting males easily. Thus, the first mate to locate a female usually mates with her. Virgin females also release a pheromone which attracts males to them, and generally even hidden virgins are found by males after an average of fifty minutes. There are at least two mechanisms evolved to prevent females from remating, one physical and one neurological/behavioral. The physical mechanism involves a literal physical barrier. When the male’s spermatophore is deposited into the female’s bursa copulatrix, the spermatophore has a long neck that can plug the female genital tract to seal it and prevent further mating. However, some second matings occur before the plug has hardened or if the plug erodes. The second, neurological, inhibition mechanism involves the mate rejection behavior. This behavior is stimulated by the neural sensation of bursal distention, which occurs in the presence of a spermatophore.

However, even with these prevention mechanisms, females do occasionally mate a second time. In instances where females mate with several males, they lay eggs which have been predominantly fertilized by the sperm of the last male to mate. This is the process of sperm precedence, and can be explained by the fact that the last sperm to enter and be stored in the spermatheca of the female is also usually the first to leave.

Male investment
Males who mated lost significantly more weight than those who did not mate, showing the loss of a spermatophore. In Euphydryas editha, average spermatophore weight is about 2.5% of male body weight, a figure that is quite small compared to the spermatophores donated by other species of male butterflies during copulation. Though larger males usually produce heavier spermatophores, neither spermatophore weight nor male body weight influence the number of eggs laid or the percentage of eggs hatched. The spermatophore transferred at mating does not constitute as paternal investment, as spermatophore weight has little effect on female reproductive output. In fact, Euphydryas editha females emerge from eclosion with all oocytes present and a portion already yolked, further limiting the role of the male spermatophore.

It follows that most male reproductive effort is devoted not to the production of a spermatophore, but to the acquisition of females, especially virgin females. Male Euphydryas editha often exhibit indiscriminate mate location behavior which is characterized by males failing to distinguish between female conspecifics and other objects, frequently resulting in misdirected courtship or attempted copulation. Because the cost of mistakes is low (low investment in spermatophores) and potential reward (location of receptive female) is high, indiscriminate behavior can become advantageous. However, in some cases, males become attracted to spider webs containing dead conspecifics, mistaking the motionless bodies in the webs for teneral females, and attempt copulation. This puts them at risk of death, showing that there is a risk of male mortality associated with indiscriminate mate location behavior.

Hilltopping behavior
Male Euphydryas editha sometimes form aggregations on patches of bare ground like ridges or peaks, and from these perches they dart after passing males and females of both their own species and other species. This strategy is called perching. Another strategy is termed patrolling and consists of males wandering in search of mates. In years of low population density, the hilltopping behavior may become adaptive. In such instances, males concentrate in mating aggregations at the highest point of a slope and females must travel up the slope after eclosion to mate. After mating, females return down the slope in order to minimize sexual harassment, and deposit their large cluster of eggs there. Hilltopping occurs in small populations where there is a smaller chance for virgin females to encounter males before reaching the hilltop. Where populations are relatively dense; however, upslope movement may place these butterflies at a reproductive disadvantage.

Pre-diapause and protandry
The butterfly Euphydryas editha exhibit protandry, defined as the emergence of males before females during the season. Males tend to emerge 4-8 days before females do and the average life span of both sexes is 10 days, though it can be as long as 3 weeks. Protandry may have an effect on the butterfly’s mating success in a population. In many time constrained populations such as the Euphydryas editha, early season matings may have a higher probability of producing adults in the next generation than those later in the year. Pre-diapause larvae are under time pressure to mature to diapause size before host plants senesce in summer drought. Therefore, larvae hatching from eggs laid earlier in the season are more likely to have reached the intended size. This is why males mating at the beginning of the season are more likely to produce surviving offspring than males mating a few weeks later.

Life cycle and behavior
Oviposition begins within a day of female emergence, with females depositing masses of up to hundreds of eggs at the base of host plants. Most populations are monophagous, with females normally ovipositing on only one of several potential host species. Such plants include Plantago erecta and Orthocarpus densiflorus. The eggs further develop into pre-diapause larvae whose goal is to enter diapause and reach the fourth instar before their annual host plants senesce. Thus, females try to enhance offspring survival by laying egg masses on cool moist slopes where host plant senescence is most delayed. Once the larvae reach the diapause stage and become post-diapause larvae (pupae), they must grow by basking in the sunlight to regulate their body temperature. Larval body temperature is about 10-12 degrees Celsius above ambient temperature, and the fastest growth rate occurs at 30-35 degrees Celsius. They must receive enough insolation (sunlight) to terminate the diapause stage and become a fully grown butterfly. Thus, the paradox is that these larvae no longer prefer the cool slopes of host plants they grew up on, as it produces shade to restrict growth.