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The Glanville fritillary (''Melitaea cinxia'') is a butterfly of the Nymphalidae family. The animal spends most of its life as a black, spiny caterpillar. The orange patterned butterfly lives only a few weeks. The Glanville fritillary inhabits open grassland throughout Europe (except much of Great Britain, Scandinavia, and southern Spain) and temperate Asia. A subspecies inhabits North Africa. Severe population declines are reported in many European countries. == Life cycle == thumb The Glanville fritillary is a medium-sized orange, black and white "checkerspot" butterfly inhabiting open meadows. The males patrol along roads and habitat edges, on the lookout for the less conspicuous females which remain in dense tussocks for long periods. Mating occurs around mid-day, and as the female often continues to fly from flower to flower, mating pairs are conspicuous. Throughout most of their range they have one generation per year, overwintering as larvae. In warm regions they have two generations per year. In her lifetime, a female lays several clusters of up to 200 eggs on the underside of the larval food plant. She feeds on nectar (with her proboscis) from surrounding flowering plants. The larvae feed on several species of plants in the genera ''Plantago'' and ''Veronica''. They live in gregarious family groups in characteristic silken webs ("nests") throughout most of their larval stage. When alarmed, a feeding group of Glanville fritillary larvae will jerk their heads in unison, probably to distract their enemies. Through the winter (or summer where it is very dry), the caterpillars stop feeding and lie dormant until spring (or fall, where the summer is dry) when they resume eating, and eventually pupate. The inconspicuous pupa hangs from a plant stem or lies in the leaf litter for 2 to 3 weeks, until the next generation of adults emerges, living for only up to three weeks. You easily differentiate the species from other European Melitaea sp. by the dark spots in the last orange row of the rear wings. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Glanville fritillary」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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