LEPIDOPTERA

• N Y M P H A L I D A E Swainson, 1827

  • EUPHYDRYAS Scudder, 1872

    
    

    • Euphydryas maturna (Linnaeus, 1758)

Euphydryas maturna (Linnaeus, 1758)

• TYPE LOCALITY. [Sweden].

• SYNONYM. agrotera (Bergstrasser, 1780).

• RANGE. Temperate belts of Europe and Siberia up to Transbaikalia and Yakutia in the east, and to NW. China and Mongolia in the south.

• DISTRIBUTION AND VARIATION. The nominotypical subspecies inhabits the European part; the ssp. staudingeri (Wnukowsky, 1929) (= uralensis (Staudinger, 1871), nom. praeoccup.) populates the Dzhungarsky Alatau Mts., the Altais, Siberia and Transbaikalia.

• HABITATS AND BIOLOGY Openings and light deciduous forest. Preferring banks of streams and rivers with rich vegetation. In the mountains, up to 1,500 m a.s.l. Flight period: June to July. Egg-laying in small groups on leaves of young trees, such as Fraxinus, Syringa, Lonicera, Spiraea, Populus tremula, P. alba, Salix. Larvae hibernating on fallen leaves. After hibernation, larvae changing the foodplant to Scabiosa, Veronica, Salvia, Plantago, Viola, Digitalis etc. (Korshunov & Gorbunov, 1995). Pupation in grass, sometimes pupae also hibernating.

• SIMILAR SPECIES. Euphydryas ichnea: generally uniform orange with a little contrasting black marking; orange submarginal fascia darker, with small black pupils most common on UNS.

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