Southern small white butterflies conquer Dutch province


This video from Switzerland is about a southern white butterfly.

On Sunday, September 27th, 2015 the first ever southern small white butterfly in the Netherlands was observed at the Fort Sint Pieter in Maastricht in Limburg province.

Since that time, now, in October 2016, 105 southern small whites have been observed, at various places in the south of Limburg province.

This species used to live only high up rocky mountains, in, eg, Switzerland, Morocco.

Recently, to their surprise, biologists found it had extended its biotope to rock gardens around Zürich, and was common there. There are many rock gardens in many countries, making it possible for the species to spread further.

For the, often subtle, differences between white butterfly species, see here.

2 thoughts on “Southern small white butterflies conquer Dutch province

    • My pleasure 🙂 This is one of the smaller butterfly species. In the Netherlands it looks much like the abundant common small white. Yet it is special, as until very recently one had to go high up the Alps in Switzerland to see them.

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