BirdGuides
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In a rapidly changing world, headlines about the many insect species losing as a result of human activity are depressingly commonplace these days. For all the losers though, the Anthropocene has some remarkable winners – and among European butterflies, few can be more impressive than Southern Small White.
Female Southern Small White near Maastricht, Limburg, on 27 September 2015 – at the time, the first specimen for the Netherlands (Pieter Vantieghem).
Historic status
Historically, this was essentially a Mediterranean species, enjoying a relatively broad distribution across the warmer parts of southern Europe. In the west, it is local on the Iberian Peninsula, spreading east into the Pyrenees, over south-east France and the southern edge of the Alps, down the Italian peninsula, into the Balkans, and as far as eastern Turkey. Outposts in Morocco and on the Slovakian-Hungarian border are probably now extinct. Despite its broad range though, this species is often overlooked, thanks to its similarity to other species of Pierid, such our own native Small White, and its quite localised distribution in some areas, where it forms small colonies around its foodplants – a number of crucifers of warm, rocky places, particularly Candytuft (