David Element's Wildlife Web Page Butterflies 45

David Element

Wildlife Photography and Digital Video Images

___________________________________ ____________________________________Butterflies 45 - Heath Fritillaries

A butterfly on a leaf

Description automatically generated

HEATH FRITILLARY Melitaea athalia (m)

A butterfly on a leaf

Description automatically generated

HEATH FRITILLARY Melitaea athalia

The Heath Fritillary Melitaea athalia is a rare butterfly in the UK but unlike many rare insects it is being well protected by active and sympathetic habitat management, and although restricted in distribution to a small number of sites this butterfly may be locally numerous if its habitat requirements have been met. On the Continent there are many potential confusion species (including the recently split and virtually indistinguishable Southern Heath Fritillary M. celadussa, formerly treated as a subspecies and with an area of range overlapping in parts of Europe), but the sighting of one of these butterflies in the UK will be unequivocal and the same should apply to specimens of either species found outside of the areas where hybridisation is known to occur. Small fritillaries may be particularly frustrating when it comes to identifying them to species, so the following excellent on-line resource from Butterfly Conservation/Butterfly Conservation Europe is highly recommended as it should enable the majority of species to be correctly identified from photographs – provided that the appropriate anatomical features are visible!: http://www.european-butterflies.org.uk/downloads/EURO%20FRITS%20GUIDE.pdf. The photographs on this page were obtained at Blean Woods in Kent prior to the advent of digital photography so they are low-resolution scans of transparencies that need to be replaced.