Alpine meadow birds
| Alpine meadow birds | ||||||||||||
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Alpine meadow bird spp. gardetta |
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| Coenonympha gardetta | ||||||||||||
| ( Prunner , 1798) |
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The alpine meadow bird or the alpine hay butterfly ( Coenonympha gardetta ) is a butterfly (day butterfly ) from the noble butterfly family (Nymphalidae). Together with the white-banded meadow bird ( Coenonympha arcania ) it forms the superspecies Coenonympha (arcania) arcania .
features
The moths reach a fore wing length of 15 to 16 millimeters. Their wing tops are colored gray-brown, the front wings are often colored lighter brown in the discus. The forewing undersides are tan and gray on the outer edge. The hind wing undersides are gray-brown, the post-disk region is dominated by a wide, white band, the basal edge of which is lobed several times and small, in contrast to the white-banded meadow bird, the edge of which is clearly toothed. On the outside of this band are up to six very differently sized, white-core, black eye-spots , which are only faintly bordered in the subspecies darwiniana (Darwin's hay butterfly). Sometimes the eye spots are greatly reduced or only hinted at. At C. gardetta f. macrophthalmica , these are significantly larger and almost the same size. The lower five of them, if any, sit towards the outer edge and are usually surrounded by the bandage, the foremost one on the leading edge of the wing is closer to the disc, but, unlike the white banded Wießenvogelchen, does not touch it and is instead surrounded by the white bandage. In the darwiniana subspecies , this eye spot often touches the edge of the bandage. A metallic, shiny and an orange line run between the row of eye spots and the edge of the wing. The undersides of the forewings are tan and gray on the outer edge and on the wing tip. In C. gardetta darwiniana the gray area is often greatly reduced. On each of them there is often another small black eye-spot near the wing tips. The wing edges are fringed off-white.
Similar species
- White-headed meadow bird ( Coenonympha arcania )
- Coenonympha orientalis
- Forest meadow bird ( Coenonympha hero )
- Red-brown meadow bird ( Coenonympha glycerion )
Occurrence
Coenonympha gardetta occurs parapatric with Coenonympha arcania , which usually only occurs up to an altitude of 800 meters. It can only be found in warm southern Alpine valleys up to 1300 meters. In the Pyrenees, where Coenonympha gardetta does not occur, C. arcania rises up to 1700 meters. The nominate form C. gardetta gardetta is found in the Alps between 1500 meters and 2400 meters altitude. The subspecies C. gardetta darwiniana flies a little lower between 1200 and 2000 meters in the western Alps in Ticino , from Lake Maggiore in the south to the Gotthard Pass in the north. The western distribution extends to the Simplon Pass and Macugnaga . The subspecies also occurs occasionally further east. In the south there is another distribution area in the Maritime Alps and the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence (formerly Basses Alpes ("Lower Alps")). C. gardetta lecerfi lives in isolation in central France in the Monts du Forez and descends up to 1300 meters.
Way of life
The moths sit with closed wings mostly on bare or stony sunny spots. To do this, they point their wing undersides directly towards the sun and therefore sit very diagonally. Only in the morning or in bad weather do they sit in the grass or on leaves on bushes.
Flight time
The animals fly annually in one generation from July to August.
Food of the caterpillars
The food plants are various grasses such as German ryegrass ( Lolium perenne ) and Italian ryegrass ( Lolium multiflorum ).
development
Nothing is known about the development of the pre-imaginal stages.
Systematics
The species was first described by Leonardo de Prunner in 1798 using a butterfly from Val Varaita in Italy, which is between 976 and 1,600 meters above sea level.
Coenonympha gardetta is not clearly differentiated from Coenonympha arcania , C. arcania forms fertile hybrids with the subspecies C. gardetta darwiniana in some areas , for example at Passo di Colle (Lake Maggiore) and at Col de Larche (Italian: Colle della Maddalena), where there is a transition zone about 10 kilometers wide. The subspecies C. gardetta darwiniana and C. gardetta gardetta also form hybrids in transition zones. Some authors also consider Coenonympha orientalis as a subspecies of gardetta and darwiniana as a separate species.
Subspecies
- C. gardetta gardetta ( Prunner ), 1798, Alps
- C. gardetta lecerfi ( De Lesse ), 1910, Forez, France
- C. gardetta darwiniana (Darwin's hay butterfly) ( Staudinger ), 1871, Ticino, distributed from Lake Maggiore in the south to the Gotthard Pass in the north. The distribution extends to the Simplon Pass and Macugnaga in the west.
to form
Due to the variable appearance of the butterflies, various forms have been described that no longer play a role in the system today:
- C. gardetta f. epiphilea ( Rebel ) is a hybrid of C. gardetta gardetta and C. gardetta darwiniana . In some animals the third ring is missing and the second is only indicated.
- C. gardetta f. philea ( Hübner ) somewhat smaller than epiphilea and described from Carinthia.
- C. gardetta f. carnica ( Nitsche ) simply has small ocellae, the holotype comes from the Valentinalpe in Carinthia .
- C. gardetta f. macrophthalmica ( Galvagni ), 1906, Eastern Alps, Karawanken , the eye spots are significantly larger and about the same size.
Synonyms
Individual evidence
- ^ Lionel G. Higgins, Norman D. Riley: The butterflies of Europe and Northwest Africa . Verlag Paul Parey, Hamburg and Berlin 1978, ISBN 3-490-01918-0 , p. 191 f .
- ^ A b Martin Wiemers: Coenonympha darwiniana - a hybrid taxon? New insights through allozyme electrophoresis , Proceedings of the XIth European Congress on Lepidoptera, Malle, Belgium, March 22-26, 1998 PDF ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ A b Franz Josef Groß: Contribution to the distinction between Coenonympha arcania L. and gardetta de Prunner . In: Wiener Entomologische Gesellschaft (Hrsg.): Journal of the Wiener Entomologische Gesellschaft . 1954, p. 372 ff . ( PDF on ZOBODAT [accessed June 12, 2015]).
- ↑ Urte Lenuweit and Bahram Gharadjedaghi: Basic biological data on Lolium perenne, Lolium multiflorum, Festuca pratensis and Trifolium repens , Umweltbundesamt Berlin, 2002 PDF with reference to Lepidoptera-Schweizerischer Bund für Naturschutz (1991)
- ↑ Tom Tolman, Richard Lewington: Butterflies of Europe and Northwest Africa: All butterflies, over 400 species . 2nd Edition. Franckh-Kosmos Verlag, Stuttgart 2012, ISBN 978-3-440-12868-8 , pp. 316 .
Web links
- Lepiforum e. V. Coenonympha gardetta taxonomy and photos
- Lepiforum e. V. Coenonympha darwiniana taxonomy and photos
- Coenonympha gardetta at Fauna Europaea
- Coenonympha gardetta in the Red List of Threatened Species of the IUCN 2013.2. Posted by: van Swaay, C., Wynhoff, I., Verovnik, R., Wiemers, M., López Munguira, M., Maes, D., Sasic, M., Verstrael, T., Warren, M. & Settele, J., 2009. Retrieved February 27, 2014.