Species profile
Queen of Spain Fritillary
Issoria lathonia · (Linnaeus, 1758)
· Updated 26 January 2015
Description
Medium sized, bright orange butterfly with distinctive roundish black spots on its uppersides and silver spots on its underside hind-wings. Sexes are indistinctive.
Issoria lathonia Caterpillars
The caterpillars are dark brown to black, covered with tiny white dots and rows of spikes along the back and sides.
Host & Food Plants
It normally feeds in violets from Viola genus.
Habitat & behaviour
It is unknown if Issoria lathonia breeds in Madeira but some years it is common to see it while in others it is an uncommon species (Aguiar & Karsholt, 2006).
In Europe they are usually found in high altitude dry meadows and open environments.
Distribution in Atlantic Islands of Macaronesia:
Occurs in Madeira & Canary Islands (Aguiar & Karsholt, 2006)
Status:
Regional status according to Aguiar & Karsholt, 2008: Migrant to Madeira
Regional status according to Wakeham-Dawson et al., 2001: Rare migrant
Status according to the European Red List of Butterflies, 2010: Least Concern