Gulf fritillary

Open areas, gardens, pastures, fields, forest edges.

Most likely to appear in Minnesota July to August.

Passion-vines (Passiflora)

Nectar

Sources

21, 29, 30, 75, 82, 83.

Rare stray in Minnesota

One Butterfly, Four Names
This species was first described in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus as Papilio vanillae. It was given that species epithet because the description was based on a painting showing the butterfly on a vanilla orchid. It was later determined that the insect does not use the vanilla plant. In 1835 it was moved to the genus Agraulis, and it became Agraulis vanillae. A recent phylogenetic analysis (Zhang et al., 2019) moved Agraulis to a subgenus of Dione, and it became Dione vanillae, with the name Dione incarnata treated as a synonym. In a subsequent paper (Zhang et al., 2020), the synonym was raised to full species status, and the North American species became Dione incarnata. A more recent molecular and morphological analysis (Núñez et al., 2022) split Agraulis vanillae into eight species, with the true Agraulis vanillae restricted to northern South America, Panama, and the southern Lesser Antilles. The authors of that paper did not accept the prior move to a subgenus of Dione. The new North American species became Agraulis incarnata.

If all this sounds confusing, it should. Four scientific names are now being used by authoritative taxonomic sources.

Agraulis vanillae is the name used by ITIS, Discover Life, Butterflies and Moths of North America, and Wikipedia.

Agraulis incarnata is the name used by BugGuide.

Dione vanillae is the name used by Catalogue of Life, GBIF, and iNaturalist.

Dione incarnata is the name used by NatureServe (as Dione incarnata nigrior) and Moth Photographers Group.

Agraulis vanillae (Gulf Fritillary)
Allen Chartier

Gulf Fritillary
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