Knapweed fritillary
The knapweed fritillary is an orange butterfly with a pattern of black lines and spots, like a little net. Its pattern is never quite the same: some have lots of black, some hardly any. It flutters over sunny meadows in southern Europe.
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Fun facts
Its caterpillar is grey with a black head, soft red-brown branched spikes and lots of tiny white dots.
Its pupa is dull yellow-brown with dark yellow and black markings.
It does not live in Britain, Ireland or Scandinavia.
Scientists recently found that some butterflies they called by this name are really a different species that looks the same.
Most asked questions about Knapweed fritillary
?Where does the knapweed fritillary live?
In most of Europe except the north, and also in North Africa, Turkey, Siberia, Mongolia and northern China.
?What does the knapweed fritillary caterpillar eat?
Leaves of plantain and knapweed plants.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Melitaea phoebe
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Nymphalidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Africa, Asia
Where the facts come from
- Melitaea phoebe (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 sticker of this bug is drawn from this 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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