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LEPIDOPTERA

Pontia daplidice daplidice (Linnaeus, 1758)

Pontia daplidice

• TYPE LOCALITY. Unknown.

• RANGE. From Africa across S. Europe to Middle Asia.

• DISTRIBUTION AND VARIATION. Talysh, Kopet-Dagh, Turan, Ghissar, S. Ghissar, Darvaz, Alai, the W. Pamirs - the nominate subspecies.

• TAXONOMIC NOTES. P. daplidice has recently been found to actually represent a species complex including a parapatric species, P. edusa Fabricius, 1777, which can be reliably identified only by means of electrophoretic methods (Geyger & Scholl, 1982). Such a kind of research is still wanting for the area in question, therefore the distribution is given approximately by analogy with that of the European-African and Middle East populations.

• HABITATS AND BIOLOGY. Most different types of open landscapes; common on cultivated lands. Flight period: April-October in two or three generations. Host plants (Nekrutenko, 1990; Gorbunov, Korshunov, 1995; etc.): Sisymbrium, Arabis, Sinapis and other Brassicaceae, also Reseda (Resedaceae). Pupa hibernating.

• SIMILAR SPECIES. P. chloridice: UPS black colour less strongly developed; UNH white spots elongated. P. glauconome: UNH ground colour yellowish with green pattern poorly developed. P. callidice: UNH white spots large and elongated.

Photo and text: Guide to the BUTTERFLIES OF RUSSIA and adjacent territories Volume 1. PENSOFT, Sofia - Moscow. 1997