Great Spangled Fritillary - Range and Life Cycle

Range and Life Cycle

This species covers a wide range over North America Stretching from Southern British Columbia, eastward to Quebec and the Maritime Provinces down south west of the Rocky Mountains to California, and down east of the Appalachian Mountains from Maine to Northern Georgia. Curiously, it does not occur in the Midwest, or in the Great Plains. Prime habitat for this species includes moist meadows and deciduous woods in the east. In the west, it prefers moist pine and oak woods and is common around woodland edges.

This species starts as an egg laid in the fall months, the caterpillar hatches from a brown egg and overwinters. It begins eating in March, generally only found on the wild violet, (Viola rotundiflora; and grows and changes in color from brown to black and produces prickly, black spines.

The Great spangled Fritilary flies quickly but pause to take nectar from a variety of blossoms including Black-Eyed Susan, Thistles, and others. Females mate in June or July and then proceed to hide, on bark, or under foliage till late August to September, to lay their eggs on the leaves of the viola. Males, which emerged earlier, in May to June, live only to mate and by this time are almost nonexistent. This species is more common in the East, int the West it is scarce, and this Western population is occasionally give species status, the Leto Fritillary, (S. leto). (Fullard & Napoleone, 2001).