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Melitaea cinxia
Upperside
Underside
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Nymphalidae
Genus:	Melitaea
Species:	M. cinxia
Binomial name
Melitaea cinxia (Linnaeus, 1758)
Synonyms
Papilio cinxia Linnaeus, 1758 Papilio pilodellae Rottemburg, 1775 Papilio delia Denis & Schiffermüller, 1775 Euphydryas cinxia

Melitaea cinxia
Upperside
Underside
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Nymphalidae
Genus:	Melitaea
Species:	M. cinxia
Binomial name
Melitaea cinxia (Linnaeus, 1758)
Synonyms
Papilio cinxia Linnaeus, 1758 Papilio pilodellae Rottemburg, 1775 Papilio delia Denis & Schiffermüller, 1775 Euphydryas cinxia

The Glanville fritillary (Melitaea cinxia) is a butterfly of the Nymphalidae family. It is named for the naturalist who discovered it and the checkerboard pattern on its wings. These butterflies live mostly in Europe, especially Finland, and across temperate Asia.

It has been discovered that this butterfly only mates one time in June or July and lays its eggs. It does not provide any protection to these eggs or care for the offspring. As adults, the Glanville fritillaries are short lived; they spend most of their lives as caterpillars. As caterpillars, Glanville fritillaries enter a stage of diapause, which is a period of suspended development, during the winter time.

Taxonomy

This species of butterfly is uniquely named in that its common name is not "butterfly", but "fritillary". The word fritillary refers to the checkered pattern of the butterfly's wings, which comes from the Latin word fritillus which means "dicebox". The "Glanville" piece of this butterfly's name comes from the naturalist who discovered it, Lady Eleanor Glanville. Lady Eleanor Glanville was an eccentric 17th- and 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,

Geographic range and habitat

The Glanville fritillary is found across Europe and temperate Asia. It is most commonly found on the Åland Islands of Finland, which host a network of about 4,000 dry meadows, the fritillary's ideal habitat. These butterflies commonly inhabit open grassland at an elevation of 0–2,000 metres (0–6,562 ft) above sea level.

Glanville fritillaries in the UK

In the UK the Glanville fritillary occurs only on soft undercliff and chine grassland and where its main larval food plant Plantago lanceolata (English plantain) occurs in abundance on sheltered, south facing slopes. The Glanville fritillary is a highly restricted species within the UK, being confined to the southern 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 the result of an introduction. There are small introduced populations on the Somerset coast and two in Surrey: one near Wrecclesham, and one at a nature reserve in Addington, near Croydon.

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.

Description

Melitaea cinxia has a wingspan of about 33–40 millimetres (1.3–1.6 in). These medium-sized butterflies have orange, black and white "checkerspot" forewings. On the upperside of the hindwings they have a row of black dots. The hindwings have white and orange bands and a series of black dots inside them, also clearly visible on the reverse. Females are usually more dull than males with more developed black dots.

Caterpillars are about 25 mm long with a reddish-brown head and a spiny black body with small white dots.

Melitaea cinxia is rather similar to the heath fritillary (Melitaea athalia), but the beige and orange bands on the underwings are distinctive. Moreover the latter one has no spots on the upperside of the hindwings.

• 
  Upperside
• 
  Underside

Food Resources

Caterpillars

Ribwort plantain

After hatching, Glanville fritillary caterpillars will feed on their host plant, either Plantoago lanceolata (ribwort plantain) or Veronica spicata (spiked speedwell). Interestingly, adult females prefer one plant over the other when choosing where to lay their eggs, but the larvae do not have a feeding preference for either plant when they are born.

Spiked speedwell

Adults

Adult Glanville fritillaries have a diet that consists solely of nectar. It has been shown that larvae with higher amounts of iridoid glycosides have better defense against parasitoids and bacterial pathogens.

Mating

Adult Glanville fritillaries take flight, mate, and lay their eggs from June to early July. During this time it has been found that females only mate once. Females also tend to mate in their natal groups before dispersing with a mate to lay their eggs in a different population. This dispersal helps induce genetic flow between populations on the fragmented meadows of the Åland Islands.

Life history

Life cycle (egg, caterpillar, pupa, adult)

A female Glanville fritillary will lay as many as 10 clutches of eggs in her lifetime. These clutches can range in size from 50 up to 300 eggs and are laid on the underside of the larval food plant of either Plantago lanceolata (ribwort plantain) or Veronica spicata (spiked speedwell).. After hatching, the caterpillars feed on their host plants until the end of the summer where they spin a "winter nest" to diapause. When winter is over they emerge from their nest to feed again before pupating around the beginning of May. A month later, the adult fritillaries emerge and go about their adult lives of feeding, mating, and laying eggs.

Clutch size

In the Glanville fritillary, clutch size is highly important as larval survival depends on groups size. Thus, understanding the different factors that contribute to clutch size is important in developing an understanding of population dynamics and life cycle.

Clutch size is inversely related to the size of the clutches previously laid, meaning that the more eggs a female lays in years prior, the fewer eggs will be in the present clutch. Further, it is known that clutch sizes decrease with the age of the female. This is thought to be due to resource depletion over time in the female, potentially from high investment in earlier clutches.

Clutch size also increases with increased intervals between oviposition. Typical Glanville fritillary oviposition occurs once every two days.

PGI genotypes

Glanville fritillary females vary in their PGI, a glycolytic enzyme, genotype. The genotype of the female influences the time of day that she is active, which also influence her ability to lay larger clutches. Heterozygote females are able to operate earlier in the day compared to all other genotypes. Further, females with a Pgi-f allele are able to begin oviposition earlier in the day and are also able to lay larger clutch sizes. The Pgi-f allele contributes to a higher metabolic rate and the ability for females to take advantage of the climate of the early day - both of which factors allow for increased clutch size. 

• 
  Mating pair
• 
  Caterpillar
• 
  Pupa
• 
  Imago

Enemies

Parasites

Glanville fritillaries are often parasitized by the parasitoids Cotesia melitaearum and Pterolmalus apum. The parasitoid C. melitaearum can be extremely detrimental to Glanville fritillary populations if it is able to become well established. This species is able to increase its own parasitism if the fritillary population is also increasing in size and age, but will decrease if said population becomes isolated. Thus, in well established fritillary populations there is a risk of local extinction by the C. melitaearum parasitoid.

Genetics

Subspecies

Subspecies include:

• Melitaea cinxia cinxia
• Melitaea cinxia amardea Grum-Grshimailo, 1895
• Melitaea cinxia atlantis Le Cerf, 1928
• Melitaea cinxia clarissa Staudinger, 1901
• Melitaea cinxia heynei Rühl, 1895
• Melitaea cinxia karavajevi Obraztsov, 1936
• Melitaea cinxia oasis Huang & Murayama
• Melitaea cinxia sacarina Fruhstorfer, 1917
• Melitaea cinxia tschujaca Seitz, 1908

Conservation

Migration Issues

As the global temperature of the Earth warms each year, many butterfly species are forced to shift northward in order to keep living in their preferred climates. Scientists have found that migratory species, such as monarch butterflies, are better able to adapt to the rising temperatures than sedentary species, such as Glanville fritillaries. Glanville fritillaries will migrate around the Åland Islands to different habitat patches, but they will not embark on great transcontinental seasonal migrations like other butterflies do. Because of this they are very susceptible to climate change, which is something to keep in mind when considering plans to aid in the conservation of this species.

General references

• Hanski, Ilkka; Saccheri, Ilik (2006). "Molecular-Level Variation Affects Population Growth in a Butterfly Metapopulation". PLoS Biol. 4 (5): e150. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0040129.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
• Linnaeus, Carl (1758). Tomus, I (ed.). Systema naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (10th ed.). Stockholm: Laurentii Salvii. p. 48.
• Nieminen, M; Siljander, M; Hanski, I (2004). "Structure and dynamics of Melitaea cinxia metapopulations". In Ehrlich, PR; Hanski, I (eds.). On the Wings of Checkerspots: A Model System for Population Biology. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 63–91. ASIN B001M4IPOG.
• Tolman, Tom; Lewington, Richard (2014). Guide des papillons d'Europe et d'Afrique du Nord (in French). Delachaux et Niestlé. ISBN 978-2-603-01649-7.
• Hanski, Ilkka (1999). Metapopulation Ecology. Oxford Series In Ecology And Evolution. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0198540656.

External links

• Lepiforum
• Paolo Mazzei, Daniel Morel, Raniero Panfili Moths and Butterflies of Europe and North Africa

Butterfly and Moth Pages Topic Order

This is a general outline that all pieces we write for Wikipedia on butterflies and moths can follow. All entries need not have all categories, but when they cover these topics they should fall in this order. It is also fine to put in extra categories relevant to your species in a place that makes sense to you.

Right hand Taxobox: On the right of the page should be the standard Wikipedia information for species, a photograph with the appropriate license, information on its systematics, distribution and conservation status.

Main page:

2)   Lead section – This is the most important section of an article since many people will not read further and will use this paragraph to decide whether the piece is worth reading. It will summarize the article overall, emphasizing the important or novel aspects of this particular species, and mentioning any controversies. It should make it clear why this butterfly or moth is important. Anything mentioned here should be covered in more detail in the rest of the piece. You are likely to need to change this if it already exists but you are modifying the piece a lot. This section is usually about 4 paragraphs.

6)   Home range and territoriality

a)   male defense of places likely to attract females

b)   home range

c)    genetic population structure

7)   Food resources

a)   caterpillars

iii) plant stimulants and deterrents to herbivory

b)   adults

i)    adult diet (e.g. nectar, feces, urine, corpses, tree sap, honey dew, pollen)

ii)  pollination

8)   Parental care

i)    Oviposition

ii)  Egg guarding

iii) host plant learning and selection for egg laying

(1)  color

(2)  odor

9)   Social behavior

a)   Caterpillar sociality

b)   Adult sociality (e.g. social roosts, mud puddling)

10) Life history

a)   Life cycle (egg, caterpillar, pupa, adult)

b)   Senescence

11) Parasitic butterflies and moths

i)    Host

ii)  Mechanisms of overcoming host

12) Migration

a)   Local or regional dispersal

b)   Whole scale migration over long distances

13) Enemies,

a)   predators,

b)   parasites,

c)    diseases

d)   immunity

14) Protective coloration and behavior

a)   Cryptic and mimicking  color and behavior

b)   Batesian

c)    Müllerian

15) Genetics

a)   Subspecies

b)   Hybridization

c)    Genomes

16) Genetics of color patterns

a)   Pigmentation and structural coloration

b)   Genes

17) Mating

a)   Mate searching behavior

b)   male/male interactions

i)    lekking

ii)  displaying

iii) aggression

c)    female/male interactions

i)    pheromones

ii)  mate choice

iii) courting

iv)  copulation, number of mates

v)    nuptial gifts

18) Physiology

a)   Flight

b)   Vision

i)    Photoreceptors

ii)  Color vision

iii) Eye sexual dimorphism

c)    Olfaction (smell)

i)    Olfactory receptors

ii)  Odors

d)   Gustation (taste)

i)    Gustatory receptors

ii)  Sexual dimorphism in taste

e)   Hearing

i)    Sound generation

ii)  Hearing organs

f)    Thermosensation

g)   Thermoregulation

h)   Digestion

i)    Diapause

19) Microbiome

a)   Gut

b)   Specialized bacteria not in gut

20) Mutualism

a)   With plants

b)   With animals

c)    With microbes

21) Interactions with humans

a)   agricultural use

b)   crop plant pollination

c)    pest of crop plants

d)   pest of forests

e)   pest of beneficial insects

f)    citizen science

g)   beauty and art

22) Conservation

a)   Habitat loss

b)   Host plant or host organism issues

c)    Migration issues

d)   As indicators of overall habitat quality because of multiple life stages and complex dependencies

From Wikipedia Lepidoptera Project:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Lepidoptera#Format_for_article

Format for article

A suggested format for articles on Lepidoptera is given in the Article formats page.

See Moduza procris (commander) and Eacles imperialis (imperial moth) as examples of typical species accounts.

Some species have extremely little information and are little more than stubs, so most of these headings are deleted. See Parnassius imperator augustus (imperial Apollo) as an example. Such species in a single genus probably would merit consolidation in the near future, as per the accepted usage.

In some cases, the species has additional interesting information which merits separate sections and sub-sections. These are issues such as taxonomy, polymorphy, mimicry, ant-association, migration or any such feature characteristic to that species and warranting a detailed treatment by itself. Hence additional headings are provided on an as-required basis. The sequence of headings, sections and sub-sections may also be changed to represent the information in the best and most convenient manner possible.

See Danaus chrysippus (plain tiger) and Papilio polytes (common Mormon) as such examples.

This is the general outline from Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Lepidoptera/Article_formats

Look at this page for descriptions of the various parts. The Taxobox is essential, if there isn’t already one for your butterfly or moth.

• Taxobox
• Introductory paragraph
• Description
• Range
• Status
• Habitat
• Habits
• Life cycle. Comprises :

·      Egg

·      Caterpillar

·      Pupa

·      Imago

• Host-plants
• See also (for Wiki sites)
• References(printed material only)
• External links (for websites)