Boloria graeca

This is one of 4 closely related species. They can all be easily distinguished except pales and napaea. See those species to distinguish between them. Study of the following table will help correctly identify graeca and aquilonaris from both pales/ napaea.

	Balkan Fritillary, B. graeca	Cranberry Fritillary, B. aquilonaris	Shepherd's Fritillary, B. pales	Mountain Fritillary, B. napaea
Range	SE Europe, SE France	N Switzerland and N & E to all Scandinavia and Poland.	Alps, Pyrenees, Cantabrians, Tatras, Carpathians, FYROM	Alps, E Pyrenees, mountains of Norway, Sweden, Finland
Range overlaps	aquilonaris - never pales - SE France, FYROM napaea - SE France	graeca - never pales/ napaea - maybe a small band of central Switzerland	napaea - Alps, E Pyrenees	pales - Alps, E Pyrenees
Underside forewing black spots	bold	bold	faint	faint (one or two post discal spots may be bolder)
Underside hindwing post discal spots	all spots form rings	mostly solid spots with a distinct ring only in space 3	See pales/ napaea for information on how to separate these two species
Overall coloration	ups orange uns yellowy and bright	ups reddish uns reddish and dark

It flies in Greece and countries bordering to the north plus in a small area of SE France and bordering mountains of Italy. I've found it fairly widespread in northern Greece but only a single specimen in the mountains of NW Italy. This is an area where its very close relatives pales and napaea are common and widespread. In my butterfly the presence of the underside forewing black spots and the underside hindwing rings clearly indicated graeca.

Balkan Fritillary