E-Fauna BC: Electronic Atlas of the Wildlife of British Columbia

Reuss (1922) stated that he named the genus Clossiana for the recognized entomologist Herr Adolf G. Closs, but it appears that Closs was only a minor worker on Lepidoptera. The common name "lesser fritillaries" refers to the small size compared with Speyeria.

Under the restricted generic usage of Boloria, we state why we recognize the genus Clossiana and define the genus. On the upperside, the wings are very similar to those of Speyeria. Some males of one species of Speyeria, S. mormonia, are as small as the largest females of our largest Clossiana, C. tritonia. Only one species, Clossiana selene, has silver spots on the ventral hindwing. This genus is Holarctic, with at least 21 species; 13 are found in North America and 12 of these occur in BC. Nine BC species are Holarctic. The 4 temperate species, 3 in BC, feed on violets (Viola) but the northern species do not. There has been much confusion in the literature regarding larval foodplants, and we discuss only those verified by Shepard (1975) and later.

The Meadow Fritillary is essentially a species occurring in eastern temperate habitat. In BC it occurs as two disjunct sets of populations, one in northeastern BC and the other through the western Cariboo and the Okanagan Highlands. In both areas it is found in open meadows adjacent to aspen woodlands and in open, mature aspen woodlands.

The Meadow Fritillary occurs from eastern BC east to Labrador and NS. In the west, the Cariboo/Okanagan Highlands form occurs in a few isolated populations in eastern WA, northeastern OR, and northern ID, and then in disjunct populations in WY and CO. In the east it is common south to latitude 38°N, often in old-growth meadows.