Small White

Pieris rapae

Pieris rapae is a small-to-medium-sized butterfly species of the whites-and-yellows family Pieridae. It is known in Europe as the small white, in North America and the United Kingdom as the cabbage white or cabbage butterfly, on several continents as the small cabbage white, and in New Zealand as the white butterfly. The butterfly is recognizable by its white color with small black dots on its wings, and it can be distinguished from P. brassicae by the latter's larger size and black band at the tip of the forewings. Source

Where it is now

In the last 8 weeks this insect was recorded 561 times across 23 areas (each area is a 5 degree square).

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Movement and weather

Each season it is first heard regularly where daytime highs are around 12°C (typically 11 to 12°C, from 5 areas). That holds across 15° of latitude, which suggests its timing follows temperature more than the calendar.

Over the weeks it was present in the past year, its centre in Europe ranged from 45°N in October to 56°N in August, about 1,200 km apart.

Arrival dates

The week it was first heard regularly in each region, after at least six weeks away. Dates differ from south to north, so a region has a range.

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Figures are effort corrected and come from automatic sound identification, which makes mistakes. How this is measured and how it compares with human observers.