Heath fritillary
The heath fritillary is a small butterfly with a checked pattern of dark brown and orange on top, like a little chessboard. Underneath it has bands of red and white. It flutters over flowery meadows, heaths and sunny woodland clearings.
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Fun facts
In England it was called the woodman's follower, because it moved into fresh clearings after woodcutters had been at work.
In 1980 only 31 groups of it were left in Britain, and it was called Britain's most endangered butterfly.
It can live from the seaside all the way up to 2600 metres in the mountains.
The pattern of white spots under its back wing helps experts tell it apart from look-alike butterflies.
Its wings have a white fringe along the edges.
Most asked questions about Heath fritillary
?Is the heath fritillary rare?
In Britain and Germany it is rare and protected, but in Europe as a whole it is still doing fine.
?Where does the heath fritillary live?
In flowery meadows, heaths and sunny woodland clearings, from western Europe to Japan.
?How big is a heath fritillary?
Its wings are about 4 to 4.7 centimetres across.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Melitaea athalia
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Nymphalidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
- Also known as
- Woodman's follower
Where the facts come from
- Heath fritillary (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Charles J. Sharp. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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