David Element

 

 

Wildlife Photography and Digital Video Images

 

__________________________________________________________________ Butterflies 101 – Marbled Fritillaries

 

 

 

A butterfly on a flower

Description automatically generated

 

MARBLED FRITILLARY Brenthis daphne (m)

 

A butterfly on a leaf

Description automatically generated

 

MARBLED FRITILLARY Brenthis daphne (m)

 

A butterfly on a leaf

Description automatically generated

 

MARBLED FRITILLARY Brenthis daphne (m)

 

A butterfly on a leaf

Description automatically generated

 

MARBLED FRITILLARY Brenthis daphne (m)

 

A butterfly on a leaf

Description automatically generated

 

MARBLED FRITILLARY Brenthis daphne (m)

 

·         Close examination of the markings is required when identifying most European fritillaries, including the Marbled Fritillary Brenthis daphne. This Butterfly Conservation European Butterflies reference: http://www.european-butterflies.org.uk/downloads/EURO%20FRITS%20GUIDE.pdf offers excellent guidance, and it should enable most European fritillaries to be identified from clear photographs – if the appropriate features can be seen. It is easy to get them wrong as the markings may be almost identical, albeit variable, for closely related species, and since he discovered it, the author has been carefully cross-checking old photographs for misidentifications – including the images shown above – and by doing so he has identified a couple of species that he didn’t know that he had photographed! There have been some recent reclassifications in the light of DNA sequence analysis too, sometimes of insects that would have been correctly identified according to the contemporary references. There are many beautifully illustrated books available for students of for butterflies but looking at a high-resolution PDF enlarged on a computer screen offers distinct advantages when making any direct comparisons with the details in photographs. The upperside illustrations on this page show the absence of sex-brands on the forewings of the male Marbled Fritillary (note also, the bright orange ground colour) and these photographs and the first picture of the underside (of a different individual) are good matches for the illustrations highlighting the significant differences between this butterfly and its close relatives in the on-line reference material referred to above. The photographs were taken in Switzerland.

 

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