Small Pearl Bordered Fritillary - Clossiana selene

The Small Pearl Bordered Firitillary, Clossiana selene, is a medium sized butterfly that occurs in much of Europe, other than the Iberian Peninsula and Ireland. It seems to occur in scattered colonies across the UK, mostly towards the west of the country. As far as I am aware they do not occur in East Lothian, although there have been a couple of unconfirmed sightings here.

Its preferred habitat is damp, marshy, woodland areas and I suppose that may explain why they tend to occur in the west of the country which is generally wetter.

As with many species of Fritillary, the larval food plant is various species of Viola. I find it interesting that this butterfly lives in such a specific habitat, when the food plants are found much more widely.

This species spends much of its life as a caterpillar. The adult butterflies are on the wing for a period of about six weeks during June and July. Their eggs will hatch in July and the caterpillars will live through to the following May before becoming chrysalises.

This week I heard that there were a lot of Small Pearl Bordered Fritillaries at a Scottish Wildlife Trust reserve in the Scottish Borders. On Tuesday I headed down to Gordon Moss to take a look for myself. I had been sent detailed instructions on how to find the reserve and then whereabouts on the reserve to look. No sooner had I arrived at the gate into the field I saw my first one and over the course of an hour I saw about 40 of them.

I was surprised how variable the markings were between individual butterflies.

I was hoping that I would see some Small Pearl Bordered Fritillaries perched with their wings closed, as the markings on the underside of the wings are really beautiful. It was quite a cloudy day, and although I had been told that they would still be flying, I think that they were taking any opportunity to absorb the few solar rays available. As soon as they landed they would open their wings up towards where the sun was trying to shine through the clouds.

However, I presume this is a female which has recently emerged. I first spotted her because there were a couple of males flying about where she was in the grass. She kept climbing grass stems presumably as she was still drying her wings. In the process she kindly revealed the underside of her wings!

The butterfly below is an aberrant, which doesn't seem to be that uncommon with fritillaries. Normally people get quite excited about aberrations in butterflies, but I have to admit that I felt rather sorry for this one. I think its wings were a little malformed and it seemed quite an effort for it to fly. It also had a wonky antenna!

It was lovely to see these butterflies. They appeared more orange in real life, but they were still very difficult to keep an eye on when they were flying.