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LEPIDOPTERA

Euphydryas (aurinia) sibirica (Staudinger. 1871)
Euphydryas (aurinia) sibirica (Staudinger. 1871)

• TYPE LOCALITY. «Sib.[eria] or. [ientalis]; Daur.[ia]».

• SYNONYMS. sibirica (Staudinger, 1861), nom. nudum; apiciata (Rober, 1926).

• RANGE. Tuva, Transbaikalia, Amur and Ussuri regions; Mongolia, N. China, Korea.

• DISTRIBUTION AND VARIATION. The nominotypical subspecies inhabits Transbaikalia. The Amur and Ussuri regions are populated by the ssp. eothena (Rober, 1926) (= mandschurica Staudinger. 1892, nom. praeoccup.; = tjutjujensis Higgins, 1950). Specimens from Tuva are very close to the ssp. davidi (Oberthur, 1881), the latter taxon described from N. China. From the adjacent parts, the following taxa have been described: ssp. tenebricosa (Bang-Haas, 1927), from Gansu, China and ssp. phyllis Hemming, 1941 (= koreana (Collier, 1933), nom. praeoccup.; = discalis (Bryk, 1946)), from N. Korea.

• HABITATS AND BIOLOGY Steppe or steppe-like meadows. Flight period: June to July. Host plant in the Amur and Ussuri regions (Dantchenko & Nikolaevsky, in press): Scabiosa lachnophylla.

• SIMILAR SPECIES. Euphydryas aurinia, E. merope: smaller; black marking of UPS complete; ground colour orange-red or pale.

 

Photo and text: Guide to the BUTTERFLIES OF RUSSIA and adjacent territories Volume 2. PENSOFT, Sofia - Moscow. 2000