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LEPIDOPTERA

Clossiana selene ([Denis et Schiffermiiller], 1775)
Clossiana selene ([Denis et Schiffermiiller], 1775)

• TYPE LOCALITY. «Umgebung von Wien» [Vienna, Austria].

• SYNONYMS. euphrosyne (Bergstrasser, 1779); euphrasia (Lewin, 1795); silene

(Haworth. 1803).

• RANGE. Nearly the entire Palaearctic Region, except for the extreme North and the mountains of Transcaucasia, Asia Minor, Central Asia; the northern part of N. America down to Nebraska and Ohio in the south.

• DISTRIBUTION AND VARIATION. The nominotypical subspecies inhabits the central and S. European parts, W. Siberia, N. Kazakhstan, the Altais, the Sayan and Transbaikalia. From the N. European part and N. Siberia, the ssp. thalia (Hiibner, 1790) (= hela (Staudinger, 1861); = obscurum (Sedych, 1977)) is known. In the E. Amur and Ussuri regions, the ssp. dilutior (Fixsen, 1887) (= sugitanii (Seok, 1938)) has been recorded, while the ssp. chibiana (Matsumura, 1927) (= sachalinensis (Matsumura, 1928)) in the Sakhalin and Kunashir islands.

• HABITATS AND BIOLOGY. Open landscapes, montane tundra up to 2,000 m a.s.l. Flight period: May to September, in one or two generations, depending on altitude and longitude. Host plants (Lang, 1884; Abadjiev, 1992; Korshunov & Gorbunov, 1995): Viola, Frcigciria, Vaccinium uliginosum.

• SIMILAR SPECIES. Clossiana perryi: FW narrower and more elongate; black markings in basal and discal parts of UPS more intensive, but marginal and submargin-al rows of black dots of UPF less well-developed. C. euphrosyne, C. iphigenia: discal band of UNH with a single mother-of-pearl spot. C. oscarus, C. thore: discal band of UNH without mother-of-pearl spots.

 

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