Black-Veined White

Fascinating facts about the Black-Veined White

• The black-veined white stretches a wingspan of 51 to 70 mm, making it a fairly large white butterfly, and females usually outsize the males. Both fore- and hind-wings shine with a translucent white surface crossed by bold black veins, while the male's underside mirrors this pattern and the female's underside shows brown veining. After emerging, a female rubs her wings together, shedding most of her scales and leaving the wings almost see-through.
• Aporia crataegi spans a continent-wide belt, from northwest Africa in the west across the Palearctic to Siberia and Japan in the east, reaching as far south as Turkey, Cyprus, Israel, Lebanon and Syria. It thrives in open forest, grazing land, orchards, lanes, gardens, meadows and thickets throughout most of Europe and temperate Asia. Though once present on the British Isles, it has been extirpated there, prompting unofficial re-introduction attempts in southern England.
• The black-veined white lays its eggs in tight clusters of 30 to 100 on Rosaceae hosts, then the embryos develop for about three weeks before hatching. Newly emerged caterpillars stay together in a communal web, feeding side-by-side before later dispersing. They overwinter together in a leaf-laden tent. The species produces only one generation each year, and the pupal stage also lasts roughly three weeks.
• Aporia crataegi relies on a broad menu of Rosaceae plants for its larvae, laying eggs on apples (Malus domestica, Malus × kaido), pears (Pyrus communis, Pyrus serotina), rowans (Sorbus intermedia, Hedlundia hybrida, Sorbus aucuparia), hawthorns (Crataegus monogyna, Crataegus oxyacantha, Crataegus jozana), and several Prunus species such as blackthorn, bird cherry and Japanese apricot. This flexibility lets the butterfly occupy diverse habitats from orchards to wild thickets, but also ties its fate to the health of these woody plants across its vast range.
• Adults take to the air from April through July. During this period the butterflies are quite social, and their abundance varies greatly from year to year.

Sources

Every fact above was checked against these pages, and kept only where one of them states it.

• Wikipedia

At a glance

About the Black-Veined White

As the Black-Veined White butterfly dances across the sun-drenched meadows, its delicate wings beat with a hypnotic rhythm, casting a mesmerizing spell of elegance and refinement. With each gentle flutter, the intricate network of black veins that crisscross its snowy white wings seems to shimmer and pulse, like the tender shoots of a newly unfurled leaf. As it alights upon a tender bloom, its proboscis uncoils with the precision of a jewelers' tool, sipping nectar with an air of fastidious grace.

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