3 hours agoShareSaveTim DoddClimate and science reporterShareSaveChris van Swaay/Butterfly ConservationDr Dan Hoare, Director of Nature Recovery at Butterfly Conservation, said the species had made an “ecological leap”.”There are species that are rare in the UK and periodically over the years they have turned up in ones and twos… but it’s not really indicating any significant shift in our fauna,” he said.”Southern Small White is very different. It’s basically colonised northern Europe from the Swiss Alps to the North Sea in the last decade, moving north at a rate of about 100 kilometres [62 miles] a year.”But whether the species stays long term is yet to be seen, he says, as its food source is a garden species called Candytuft that is not as widely planted here.The species has never been a migrant to the UK, and is yet to have been recorded breeding here, which is what a resident species would do.
