Coenonympha nipisiquit
| Coenonympha nipisiquit | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Coenonympha nipisiquit | ||||||||||||
| McDunnough , 1939 |
Coenonympha nipisiquit is a rare butterfly from the noble butterfly family(Nymphalidae) that occursonly very locally in salt marshes on the east coast of Canada. The species has long been considered a subspecies of the large meadow bird Coenonympha tullia and is now seen as a separate species.
features
Imago
The moths have a wingspan of 32 to 36 mm. They are ocher-colored to ocher-brown on the upper side and the outer half of the forewings and almost the entire hindwings are often poured over gray. There is often a light band on the forewing. The underside of the forewing is darker than the upper side. Over 90% of females and about 30% of males have a white eye-spot with a black core on the wing tip on the underside of the forewing, which sometimes shows through on the upper side. The hind wing underside is dark brown from the root to an interrupted, irregular, cream-colored band in the marginal region. Then it is light brown-beige. The hem is dark smoke brown at the front and becomes lighter towards the back.
egg
The conical eggs have 40-48 vertical ribs, a millimeter in diameter at the base and 1.1 millimeters high. Freshly laid, they are pale green and turn tan with brown spots in the following days .
Caterpillar
The initially tan-colored caterpillar turns yellow-green or green after the first meal. On the back there is a dark green line between light yellow and wide yellowish green side stripes, which get darker downwards. A yellow stripe runs underneath. The dark green head is larger than the first segment and clearly separated from it. The abdomen tapers and ends in two conical, red-brown tips. Small, white tubercles with seta (bristles) on the head and body give the caterpillars a grainy appearance.
Doll
The blue-green tumbler with a series of black stripes is 11–13 millimeters long.
Similar species
The large meadow bird ( Coenonympha tullia spp. Inornata ) has the same markings, but is lighter and often has bright spots on the edge of the upper side of the hind wing. The underside is also lighter. The flight time, the habitat and the caterpillar diet differ so much that both species can be clearly distinguished.
distribution
Coenonympha nipisiquit occurs around the Chaleur Bay in northern New Brunswick and on the coast of the Gaspésie Peninsula in Québec . Ten populations with a total of 56,000 to 66,000 butterflies are known, two of which were introduced by humans. The populated area is 76 km², of which only 455 hectares represent a suitable habitat. In New Brunswick up to 37,000 moths live in four natural populations in the area around Bathurst and 50–80 km further east, several thousand animals in two settled populations in Bas-Caraquet and Rivière du Nord . On the opposite side of Chaleur Bay in Québec, around 27,000 moths live in three populations, of which the two small together produce fewer than 50 adults. About 160 km to the northeast, on the Atlantic coast near Penouille in Forillon National Park , there is a geographically isolated population that probably numbers fewer than 100 individuals and whose long-term survival is just as dubious as that of the other small populations.
| Population (place) | province | Number of adults |
|---|---|---|
| Peters River (Bathurst) | New Brunswick | 27,000 |
| Daly Point Reserve (Bathurst) | New Brunswick | 9500 |
| Carron Point (Bathurst) | New Brunswick | Hundreds |
| Bass River (Bathurst) | New Brunswick | Hundreds |
| Rivière du Nord * | New Brunswick | 2000-3000 |
| Bas-Caraquet * | New Brunswick | 500-1000 |
| Rivière Nouvelle at Nouvelle | Quebec | 26,000 |
| Saint-Omer | Quebec | 20-30 |
| Saint-Siméon-de-Bonaventure | Quebec | <10 |
| Penouille, Forillon National Park | Quebec | <100 |
* Introduced population
In Saint-Siméon-de-Bonaventure there has been no evidence since 2002.
Habitat and way of life
The habitat is limited to salt marshes, which are sometimes flooded. In places these are almost 100% overgrown with the silt grass Spartina patens . Other plants in the marshes are the sea lavender Limonium carolinianum , the goldenrod Solidago sempervirens , sea plantain ( Plantago maritima ) and Spartina alterniflora . When the tide is high, these areas are flooded to a depth of 0.5 - 1 m.
On the day of hatching, the females are mated near their pupation site by males who hatch a few days before the females. They are mated only once, while the males can mate several times. The unmated females often sit upside down at the end of Spartina patens . Roaming males will fly at every orange object they come across. The female ready to mate lets its open wings vibrate as soon as the male is only a few centimeters away. This lands behind the female and also flaps its wings. The courtship is over after 20 seconds, the subsequent mating then lasts one to one and a half hours. Mated females react to approaching males with vibrating but closed wings.
Since only some of the eggs are mature at the time of mating, the female initially lays only about 24 of its 130 or more eggs. It flies 10-20 meters over the grass and abruptly sinks to the ground. On the ground, it runs over the litter to lay a single egg on the tip of a thin, dead stalk of Spartina patens . The dead stalk is located near a vital plant. Without flying, up to four more eggs can be laid a few centimeters away. The storage habitats vary greatly, from almost 100% Spartina patens plant stems to more humid areas with only 10%. In the following days, more eggs ripen and after seven days between 115 and 130 eggs are laid. The average life expectancy is six, the maximum is at least 14 days.
After 10-15 days, the approximately 2.5 mm long caterpillars hatch and first eat the egg shell and some of the dead grass on which the egg was deposited. After that, preference is given to young shoots. After 15-17 days they molt to the second larval stage, in which they later hibernate in the litter. In contrast, the caterpillars of C. tullia inornata overwinter in the third or fourth instar. They have then reached a length of just over 5 mm. At the end of April to the beginning of May of the following year they end their diapause and start feeding on the young shoots of Spartina patens . In the beginning they stay close to the ground. Later they rise with the growing shoots. In the fifth stage at the end of July, when the caterpillars have reached a length of over 23 mm, they pupate near the ground. The butterfly hatches after nine to eleven days.
The caterpillars are adapted to their habitat and survive brief immersion in tidal water much better than caterpillars of C. tullia inornata , which die after a week at the latest , even if they are force-fed with Spartina patens .
Flight time
The moths fly in one generation from mid-July to mid-August.
food
The silt grass Spartina patens is the most important food plant of the caterpillars. The caterpillars also ate common red fescue ( Festuca rubra ) only in breeding .
In New Brunswick, and probably also in Québec, the moths feed mainly on Limonium carolinianum . In the main flight season of Coenonympha nipisiquit , the species is responsible for over 90% of the flower visits to Limonium carolinianum . Further nectar suppliers for the moths are, with decreasing importance, Solidago sempervirens , beach plantain ( Plantago maritima ) and the goose weed Potentilla anserina spp. egedii . The goldenrod Solidago sempervirens usually only blooms at the end of the flight time, unless it is already relatively cool. The females ingest more nectar than the males and intensify their flower visits with age, which is probably due to the higher energy requirements for egg production.
Hazard and protection
Of the ten populations, only three are large enough to likely survive in the long term. Urban development in Bathurst and Beresford, New Brunswick, is a serious threat to at least one population. Rising sea levels and damage from erosion and storms in the salt marshes are affecting all populations. The picking of sea lavender ( Limonium carolinianum ), the main food source for the butterflies, is also a threat. The area with the largest population on the Peters River is owned by over 300 different private owners. The municipality of Beresford tries to educate the owners about land use in favor of the moths. The second largest at Daly Point (Bathurst, New Brunswick) belongs to the city of Bathurst and is a protected area.
The Société de conservation des milieux humides du Québec has bought 68 hectares of land from Nouvelle to protect the largest population of Coenonympha nipisiquit in Québec.
In the very small population of less than ten observed butterflies in Saint-Siméon-de-Bonaventure, Québec, no more butterflies have been observed since 2002. The three butterflies seen there afterwards probably came from St. Omer or Nouvelle.
The small occurrence in Forillon National Park is protected by the park, but the population is very small and its long-term survival is uncertain.
Taxonomy and systematics
Coenonympha nipisiquit was described in 1939 by J. McDunnough as a subspecies of the great meadow bird. It was found in salt marshes near the Peters River, which today belong to Beresford near Bathurst in New Brunswick. The classification as a species or subspecies is still not fully clarified. The species complex C. tullia is subject to constant taxonomic changes. In 1955, Brown had C. tullia inornata species status and nipisiquit was considered their subspecies. Later inornata was again regarded as a subspecies of tullia and thus nipisiquit was again a subspecies of tullia (Miller & Brown 1981, Hodges 1983, Scott 1986). Molecular studies in 2007 showed that it is a species of its own, which today occurs partly sympatric with C. tullia inornata and does not mate with it. The flight times of the two species only overlap slightly, inornata flies from mid-June to early July, nipisiquit flies from mid-July to mid-August. Moths of a second generation of inornata only rarely fly in late August. C. tullia inornata did not migrate west to New Brunswick until the 1970s and can be found anywhere on open grassy areas, including the edge of the salt marsh.
literature
- COSEWIC Assessment and Update Status Report on the Maritime Ringlet Coenonympha nipisiquit in Canada , Ottawa, 2009, ISBN 978-1-100-12933-4 .
- Environment Canada Recovery Strategy for the Maritime Ringlet (Coenonympha nipisiquit) in Canada Species at Risk Act Recovery Strategy Series. 2012, Ottawa, ISBN 978-1-100-18995-6 .
- The Canadian Biodiversity Web Site: Maritime Ringlet Butterfly - Coenonympha tullia nipisiquit
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cosewic p. 5
- ↑ a b c d e f g Reginald P. Webster: The life history of the Maritime ringlet, Coenonympha tullia nipisiquit (Satyridae) . In: Journal of The Lepidopterists' Society . No. 52 , 1998, pp. 345-355 ( biostor.org ).
- ↑ Cosewic p. 6
- ↑ Cosewic p. 19
- ↑ Cosewic p. 22
- ↑ a b Recovery Strategy for the Maritime Ringlet , p. 2
- ↑ Cosewic p. 16
- ↑ Cosewic p. 17
- ↑ Cosewic pp. 15/16
- ↑ a b c Cosewic pp. 14/15
Web links
- Pictures of needled butterflies at Butterflies of America
- Canadian Biodiversity Information Facility
- Maritime Ringlet , Natural Resources, New Brunswick