Mountain heather St. John's wort tensioner

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Mountain heather St. John's wort tensioner
Bergheiden St. John's Wort Spanner (Aplocera praeformata)

Bergheiden St. John's Wort Spanner ( Aplocera praeformata )

Systematics
Class : Insects (Insecta)
Order : Butterflies (Lepidoptera)
Family : Spanner (Geometridae)
Subfamily : Larentiinae
Genre : Aplocera
Type : Mountain heather St. John's wort tensioner
Scientific name
Aplocera praeformata
( Huebner , 1826)
Preparation of a mountain heather St. John's wort tensioner

The Bergheiden-Johanniskraut-Spanner ( Aplocera praeformata ), also called Großer Hartheu-Grauspanner , is a butterfly ( moth ) from the family of Spanner (butterfly) (Geometridae).

features

The butterflies of the Bergheiden-St. John's wort-spanner reach a wingspan of about 34 to 44 millimeters. The forewings have a gray to blue-gray basic color. In the root field, in the middle and behind the middle there are bands formed from dark transverse lines. A red-brown stain extends towards the wing tip. The hind wings are monochrome and gray-white without drawing. A similar species is the Great St. John's Wort Spanner ( Aplocera plagiata ). They are distinguished by the following characteristic features of praeformata :

  • the ligaments in the anterior part of the forewings are strongly darkened
  • next to the central band there is a red-brown spot on the inside, in the direction of the root
  • the outer transverse band has three points, in plagiata there are only two.

Color variations of the Bergheiden-St. John's wort spanner are expressed in the following forms:

  • f. conflua Hoffm., bands in front of and behind the middle meet at the inner edge
  • f. rosacea pine, specimens with reddish-colored forewings
  • f. suffusa Bergmann, specimens with blackish, darkened forewings

The caterpillar is gray-brown and has a white side line and a dark lower edge.

Similar species

Synonyms

  • Anaitis preformata

Occurrence

The distribution area of ​​the mountain heather St. John's Wort spanner extends from the Iberian Peninsula and France, with larger distribution gaps in Western Europe, through Central Europe to Russia. The northernmost distribution areas are southern Finland and the Baltic States . In Greece the ssp. urbahni , Dufay, 1981. The species is absent on the Mediterranean islands. In the Alps, the limit of occurrence is 2000 meters. The species is mainly found in the low mountain ranges, on warm, sunny slopes, mountain heaths and the edges of forests and meadows.

Way of life

The Bergheiden-Johanniskraut-Spanner is univoltin , which means that only one generation is formed per year. The moths fly from mid-June to August. They are nocturnal, fly to artificial light sources , but can also be observed sucking on various flowers such as common goldenrod ( Solidago virgaureae ), scabies knapweed ( Centaurea scabiosa ) or dwarf elderberry ( Sambucus ebulus ). The caterpillars live from August, overwinter and pupate in June of the following year. The most important food plant is St. John's wort ( Hypericum perforatum ).

Danger

Büttner's slanted-winged owl occurs in Germany in almost all federal states in different frequencies, can be numerous in very limited places and is classified as not acutely endangered on the Red List of Endangered Species .

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Manfred Koch, Wolfgang Heinicke, Bernd Müller: We determine butterflies. Volume 4: Spanner. 2nd, improved and enlarged edition. Neumann, Leipzig / Radebeul 1976, DNB 780451570 .
  2. ^ A b Günter Ebert (Hrsg.): The butterflies of Baden-Württemberg Volume 8, Nachtfalter VI (Spanner (Geometridae) 1st part), Ulmer Verlag Stuttgart 2001. ISBN 3-8001-3497-7
  3. ↑ Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (Ed.): Red List of Endangered Animals in Germany. Landwirtschaftsverlag, Münster 1998, ISBN 3-89624-110-9

literature

  • Günter Ebert (Ed.): The butterflies of Baden-Württemberg Volume 8, Nachtfalter VI (Spanner (Geometridae) 1st part), Ulmer Verlag Stuttgart 2001. ISBN 3-8001-3497-7
  • Manfred Koch , Wolfgang Heinicke, Bernd Müller: We determine butterflies. Volume 4: Spanner. 2nd, improved and enlarged edition. Neumann, Leipzig / Radebeul 1976, DNB 780451570 .

Web links

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