Back to basics to look at our Small/Medium orange butterflies of Vermont.
Which butterfly is a Silver-bordered Fritillary?
- Left
- Right
0
voters
Click below to reveal the answer to this weeks’ quiz.
The butterfly on the right is the Silver-bordered Fritillary. The butterfly on the left is a Harris’ Checkerspot.
While these two species share similar colors, size and pattering, there are a few minute differences that can help tell them apart. First, the Silver-bordered Fritillary has a thinner black border along the margin of their wings, while the border for the Harris’ Checkerspot is quite thick. Although difficult to see in this picture, the Harris’ Checkerspot also has a series of dots with a tan/cream colored interior just above the chevrons on their hind wing. They are not fully developed in this individual but are clearly missing from the Fritillary.
Another hint could be the plants they are found hosting on. Fritillaries host exclusively on Violets while Harris’ Checkerspot prefers the Flat-topped White Aster. Both species fly from May to September, although the Harris’ Checkerspot is less common after July.
Despite the similarities between the two species, they are not particularly related. Checkerspots and Fritillaries both belong to the same family of butterflies, Nymphalidae - the brush-footed butterflies. But they share this designation with 6000 other butterflies and diverged sometime over the past 65 million years.
Harris’ checkerspot by Kent McFarland (iNaturalist)
Silver-bordered Fritillary by Tracy Sherbrook (iNaturalist)
Ready for next weeks’ quiz? Click here!