Carcharodus alceae has a wingspan of 28–32 mm. The background colour of the forewings is pinkish brown, with approximately square brown markings, short, white transverse stripes running from the edge and clear patches on the discal area. Hindwings are brownish or grey-brown, with some prominent brighter spots on the underside. Males are without hair tuft on forewings underside. Antennae have cherry brown tips.
The eggs are yellowish and hemispherical and the surface is covered with elongated warts, connected each other with low ribs. The egg has a prickly appearance. In the course of the development they turn red. The caterpillars can reach a length of about 23 millimetres (0.91 in). They are dark gray, covered with small white dots and short, white hairs. The head is black with yellow spots, separated by black stripes.
This widespread and common species can be found from Western Europe to Central Asia e.g. in most of southern and central Europe, in northern Africa (Morocco east to Tunisia and Libya), in the Middle East, in Asia Minor, the Caucasus, in northern India, in the Middle and Central Asia, in the western Himalayas and in the south of Western Siberia. In Europe, the species occurs mainly in the Mediterranean area. In Germany, the regular distribution extends to Central Germany (north to the Kyffhäuser Mountains). Evidence in previously unpopulated areas of Central Europe clearly indicates that C. alceae is currently in a phase of spreading.
These butterflies prefer dry warm and stony areas, wasteland, warm ruderals and gardens at an elevation up to 1,100 metres (3,600 ft) above sea level. The altitudinal distribution of Carcharodus alceae in Bavaria extends from about 100 m to 600 m, the focus is in the Colline zone with an altitude distribution between 200 m and 500 m.
A wide range of grassland habitats and ruderal meadows with occurrences of mallow species serve as habitat for Carcharodus alceae. In Middle and Southern Franconian Jura, these are imperfections in limestone and sandy grasslands or ruderal embankments as well as other thermophilic ruderal meadows. Other habitats include fallow land, especially industrial wasteland, roadsides and arable fields that have been sown with seed mixtures, and oviposition also take place regularly in gardens and on the edge of vineyards. In limestone grasslands, especially locations with patchy and disturbed vegetation, such as limestone rubble areas, seams or marginal transition structures to fields are used. Numerous observations have been made in the last few years in freshly cleared limestone grasslands over open bare ground. At the latter there is temporarily an increased settlement of mallow species.
The powerfully flying imagos can evidently colonize newly created habitats very quickly. Often a single mallow plant is enough. In the Neumarkt / Oberpfalz district in Germany, for example, it has been possible to detect the species both as a butterfly and as a caterpillar in almost all of the larger grassland areas over the past ten years, albeit mostly only in low density. Although the imagos are very capable of flying and thus spreading rapidly, they are mostly observed in the vicinity of their larval habitats.
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