Glanville Fritillary
Glanville Fritillary ( melitaea cinxia )
The plantain Fritillary ( melitaea cinxia ) is a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae ( Nymphalidae ).
- 5.1 Notes and references
- 5.2 Literature
Features
The moths reach a wingspan of 33-40 millimeters. They have yellow -brown to orange-brown upper wing, marked with a black grid pattern. The outer edge of the wing is white. Near the posterior margin of the hind wings there are four to five orange fields that are black cored. The undersides of the hind wings are white with two broad, orange transverse bands. The bandages are black framed and it can also be found in the white areas interspersed with numerous black spots. Are on the rear binder, such as on the front, the orange black faces cored.
The caterpillars are about 25 mm long and have numerous, short, black spines. You are almost black in color and have a few white, arranged in transverse rows white dots. Her head is red.
Occurrence
The animals live in almost all of Europe, except the north and parts of the Iberian Peninsula, in parts of north-west Africa, Turkey, Russia, the North Kazakhstan and Mongolia. In Europe, they can be up to an altitude of 2000 m found in North Africa. Even up to 2600 m In Germany they are still occurring in some low mountains and warm places in the Alps, but were also found in 2008 in a short-rotation plantation in Brandenburg Cahnsdorf. They live in open, dry areas, such as Dry grasslands, meadows, wasteland and forest edges. This type was formerly one of the most common fritillary and omnipresent. They are now rare but almost everywhere and is classified as endangered.
Way of life
The moths are thermophilic and sunbathe like sitting on the floor. They fly in one generation a year depending on the region from late April to early August, but in the south or warm areas, they also fly in two May-June and August-September.
Food of the caterpillars
The caterpillars feed mainly on plantain ( Plantago lanceolata) and other types of plantain, but also of Big Speedwell ( Veronica teucrium ), mouse-ear hawkweed ( Hieracium pilosella ) and meadow knapweed (Centaurea jacea ).
Development
The females lay their eggs in layered heap onto the bottom of the food plants. The resulting hatching caterpillars live socially in a cocoon and overwinter in adolescent. After the winter they will soon be grown and then just live solitary. They pupate in April or May near the bottom in one, spun in a loose cocoon gray Stürzpuppe that has several bright spots on the back.