Glanville Fritillary
FamilyNymphalidae
Scientific NameMelitaea cinxia
RangeEurope, Asia, North Africa
HabitatDry meadows
About the Glanville Fritillary
Named after Eleanor Glanville, a seventeenth-century English collector. Its populations on the Aland Islands of Finland have been studied for decades by ecologist Ilkka Hanski and colleagues, making it a classic model of how species survive in fragmented habitats. Caterpillars live in groups in silk nests on plantains. In Britain it is mainly confined to the Isle of Wight.
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