When they last roamed England in 1925, they counted Winston Churchill as a fan. Now, black-veined whites – an extremely rare species of British butterfly – have been spotted fluttering once again.
Small numbers of the black and white insects have been spotted in fields and hedgerows in south-east London, nearly a century after the species was thought to have become extinct in the UK.
Naturalists are wondering whether the recent spate of warm weather may account for their reappearance.
First classified as a British species during King Charles II’s reign, the butterflies are believed to have died out in the UK after a series of wet and chilly autumns in the 1920s – although they continued to thrive in warmer climates in Europe and north Africa.
Recently, as temperatures in Britain have soared due to the climate emergency, scientists have repeatedly predicted that the black-veined white – known as Aporia crataegi in Latin – would once again return to southern and eastern England.
This month, the species was spotted in London by a BBC reporter, who along with other naturalists witnessed the rare butterflies flitting between hawthorn and blackthorn trees.
Churchill was known to be a fan of the insects and hired the UK’s leading lepidopterist to help him reintroduce the extinct species into his back garden in the 1940s.
He hoped that one day, the rare butterflies would feast on “fountains of honey and water” at his family home of Chartwell in Kent.
But despite releasing hundreds of the butterflies, which have a wing span of about 7cm, he failed in his attempt.
The charity Butterfly Conservation, which monitors butterfly numbers in Britain, was sceptical about the idea that changes in the British climate might have succeeded where Churchill failed and brought about a spontaneous recovery of the extinct species.
The charity told the BBC these insects are likely to have been deliberately released into the wild, but they do not know by whom or why.