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The marsh fritillary is a rare butterfly\u00a0 that was once abundant in the British Isles. Its favoured habitats are damp grasslands and shorter coastal grasslands.<\/span><\/p>\n To survive the winter\u00a0 the marsh fritillary, Euphydryas aurinia<\/i>, builds itself a life-support bubble. This rare butterfly, as its name suggests, often frequents damp meadows and quivering bogs and marshes, where its foodplant, devil\u2019s-bit scabious, grows. Here in summer, clusters of eggs hatch and the tiny caterpillars start their gregarious onslaught on the downy scabious leaves.<\/span><\/p>\n Their larval lives are very much a co-operative existence. Playing a central part in their plan is a silky web, to which every caterpillar contributes strands of silk from a silk gland-and-spinneret combo in its lower lip. The famous fibre creates a fine framework of criss-crossing strands that enshrouds the foodplant. This network keeps the gang together, provides a sunbed and offers shelter from bad weather and predators.<\/span><\/p>\n The latter function becomes even more crucial in late summer, when the caterpillars moult from light brown creatures Now the caterpillars change the fibre of their fabric, starting to spin a denser web. They head down deep to the base of their foodplant to do this, just a couple of centimetres above the soil, and here begin the collective craft of creating a winter survival capsule. This web is a smaller, tighter, less nebulous affair than the previous feeding web, and its purpose is subtly different. The structure itself is more parchment like and tends to be roughly spherical.<\/span><\/p>\n Inside this chamber, they do \u2013 for caterpillars \u2013 very little. They shut down their bodily processes, stop feeding and wait out the winter. Not much is known about the rest of their story \u2013 it really is a chamber of secrets. But we can assume that the structure The low metabolism of the larvae means that the little air trapped within the winter web is enough for their requirements. The drier environment inside might also lower the incidence of mould and bacterial attack, and minimise damage from sub-zero temperatures, while the trapped air acts as a further thermal buffer.<\/span><\/p>\n Here they stay, out of sight,\u00a0sitting there safe, awaiting the very first warm rays of spring sunshine. When, sometimes as early as February, they will crawl out of their slumber. Forming a dense black mass, they bask, harness the sun\u2019s energy to kickstart their appetites, and pick up their life-cycle where they left off.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n By Nick Baker Published: Wednesday, 05 October 2022 at 12:00 am What is the marsh fritillary? The marsh fritillary is a rare butterfly\u00a0 that was once abundant in the British Isles. Its favoured habitats are damp grasslands and shorter coastal grasslands. Marsh fritillary lifecycle To survive the winter\u00a0 the marsh fritillary, Euphydryas aurinia, builds itself […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":20927,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"3"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/10\/marsh-fritillary-how-a-life-support-bubble-helps-this-rare-butterfly-to-survives-winter.jpg",2119,1414,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/10\/marsh-fritillary-how-a-life-support-bubble-helps-this-rare-butterfly-to-survives-winter-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/10\/marsh-fritillary-how-a-life-support-bubble-helps-this-rare-butterfly-to-survives-winter-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/10\/marsh-fritillary-how-a-life-support-bubble-helps-this-rare-butterfly-to-survives-winter-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/10\/marsh-fritillary-how-a-life-support-bubble-helps-this-rare-butterfly-to-survives-winter-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/10\/marsh-fritillary-how-a-life-support-bubble-helps-this-rare-butterfly-to-survives-winter-1536x1025.jpg",1536,1025,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/10\/marsh-fritillary-how-a-life-support-bubble-helps-this-rare-butterfly-to-survives-winter-2048x1367.jpg",2048,1367,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Nick Baker Published: Wednesday, 05 October 2022 at 12:00 am What is the marsh fritillary? The marsh fritillary is a rare butterfly\u00a0 that was once abundant in the British Isles. Its favoured habitats are damp grasslands and shorter coastal grasslands. Marsh fritillary lifecycle To survive the winter\u00a0 the marsh fritillary, Euphydryas aurinia, builds itself…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/20926"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Marsh fritillary lifecycle<\/span><\/h2>\n
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