Black-veined White (Aporia crataegi)

The Black-veined White is one of our larger and most recognizable whites, which we often encounter in early summer on flowering mountain meadows and along forest edges. Its wings are snow-white with distinctly emphasized black veins, giving it a characteristic graphic appearance. A peculiarity of this butterfly is that with aging it loses scales on the wings, making them partially transparent, almost parchment-like.
Its habitat includes open landscapes with flowering shrubs, orchards, and mountain meadows up to the submontane zone. Adult butterflies are excellent fliers and like to stay in groups, where they feed on flower nectar. Its caterpillars are trophically bound to hawthorn, blackthorn, wild cherries, and other shrubs from the Rosaceae family, where they spin communal silken nests for overwintering.
In Slovenia, it is a widely distributed and relatively common species, but in many parts of Western Europe it has already strongly declined or even gone extinct. For hikers, the Black-veined White with its calm flight and clean wing lines represents one of the most beautiful natural decorations of sunny mountain paths in June and July.