Melitaea parthenoides Keferstein, 1851

Host plants:
The caterpillars feed in the first place on Plantago species (especially P. lanceolata, P. media), possibly also Scrophulariaceae.

Habitat:
Melitaea parthenoides colonizes dry limestone grasslands, wetlands (fens), and mesophilic, extensive grassland. Important are low-growing, gappily vegetated and not felted areas.

Life cycle:
Melitaea parthenoides occurs in one or two generations with adults in May/June and August/September or with one generation only in June/July as on wet meadows in the Allgäu in southwest Bavaria. The caterpillar overwinters.

Endangerment: strongly endangered

Endangerment factors:
Melitaea parthenoides is in strong decline in Germany, where it occurs only in the southwest approximately to the Allgäu (SW-Bavaria) due to habitat loss. Melitaea parthenoides needs unfelted, nutrient-poor meadows. I observed larvae, for example, in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence at 1500m above sea level on Plantago media in May.

Remarks:
The total distribution is Atlanto-Mediterranean with occurrance from the Iberian Peninsula, across France, Switzerland to southern Germany.