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).
Read more about this topic: Great Spangled Fritillary
Famous quotes containing the words range and, range, life and/or cycle:
“They didn’t know
how
my heart woke
to a range and measure
of song
I hadn’t known.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“but we wish the river had another shore,
some further range of delectable mountains,”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)
“It would be some advantage to live a primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outward civilization, if only to learn what are the gross necessaries of life and what methods have been taken to obtain them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The lifelong process of caregiving, is the ultimate link between caregivers of all ages. You and I are not just in a phase we will outgrow. This is life—birth, death, and everything in between.... The care continuum is the cycle of life turning full circle in each of our lives. And what we learn when we spoon-feed our babies will echo in our ears as we feed our parents. The point is not to be done. The point is to be ready to do again.”
—Paula C. Lowe (20th century)