Glanville Fritillary
Categories: Nymphalidae | Isle of Wight
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| Melitaea cinxia Linnaeus, 1758 |
The Glanville Fritillary (Melitaea cinxia) is a butterfly of the Nymphalidae family.
The animal spends most of its life as a black, spiny caterpillar. The orange patterned butterfly lives only a few weeks.
The Glanville fritillary inhabits all types of grassland throughout Europe (except much of Great Britain, Scandinavia, and southern Spain) and temperate Asia. A subspecies inhabits North Africa. Severe population declines are reported in many European countries.
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Life cycle
The Glanville Fritillary is an agile flyer, the males patrol along suitable habitat constantly investigating golden objects in the hope of finding the less conspicuous females which remain in dense tussocks for long periods. Mating occurs around mid-day, and as the female often continues to fly from flower to flower, mating pairs are very conspicuous. The butterfly forms close knit colonies but one or two adults are seen inland from the main breeding sites in most years.
The female lays two batches of up to 200 eggs in loose clusters under the tips of narrow leaved plantain or sea plantain leaves, usually in May or June. She feeds on buttercups, yellow vetches, or trefoils by sucking the nectar with her proboscis. After laying her second batch of eggs, the female dies. The larvae feed on the plantain under a characteristic protective silken web. When alarmed, a feeding group of Glanville fritillary larvae will jerk their heads in unison. They may do it to confuse predators or deter parasitic wasps.
Through the winter, the caterpillars stop feeding and lie dormant until spring when they resume eating, becoming full grown after their sixth moult in early April. The pupa hangs from a plantain stem for about 15 days, until the next generation of adults emerges, living for only up to three weeks.
Glanville Fritillaries in the UK
In the UK the Glanville Fritillary occurs only on soft undercliff and chine grassland and the slopes above where its main larval foodplant Plantago lanceolata occurs in abundance on sheltered, south facing slopes. The Glanville Fritillary is a highly restricted species in the UK being confined to the south coast of the Isle of Wight. It also occurs in the Channel Islands and since 1990 there has been a mainland site on the Hampshire coast, possibly an introduction. There is a small introduced population on the Somerset coast.
Historic UK records suggest a distribution which went as far north as Lincolnshire. However, by the middle of the 19th century the Glanville Fritillary was known only from the Isle of Wight and the coast of Kent between Folkestone and Sandwich. It became extinct in Kent by the mid 1860s.
Origin of Name
The Glanville fritillary is named for Lady Eleanor Glanville, an eccentric 18th century English butterfly enthusiast - a very unusual occupation for a woman at that time. She was the first to capture British specimens in Lincolnshire during the 1690s. A contemporary wrote:
This fly took its name from the ingenious Lady Glanvil, whose memory had like to have suffered for her curiosity. Some relations that was disappointed by her Will, attempted to let it aside by Acts of Lunacy, for they suggested that none but those who were deprived of their senses, would go in Pursuit of butterflies. Moses Harris, 1776