Colias erate

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Colias erate
Colias erate poliographus sep01 edited.png

Colias erate

Systematics
Class : Insects (Insecta)
Order : Butterflies (Lepidoptera)
Family : Whitelings (Pieridae)
Genre : Colias
Type : Colias erate
Scientific name
Colias erate
( Esper , 1805)

Colias erate is a butterfly ( butterfly ) from the family of Whites (Pieridae).

features

The male moths reach a wingspan of 36 to 40 millimeters and the female 38 to 50 millimeters, whereby the Central Asian moths are generally larger than European ones. They have slightly more pointed wing tips than related species. Like most Colias species, Colias erate has a yellow base of the wings. Females with whitish colored wings are sometimes found in Europe and predominate in Central Asia. The moths are extremely variable in their coloring and therefore very difficult to distinguish from similar species of the same genus. The upper sides of the wings are colored lemon yellow and have a wide black colored outer edge. Around the wingtip, the black also runs towards the leading edge. In the males the black is strong and interspersed with no or a few yellow submarginal spots , in the females it is pale and also includes several such spots. Approximately in the middle of the forewing, slightly offset to the front edge, there is a small black spot. The upper sides of the hind wings are also lemon yellow in color, but lightly darkly pollinated. A large part of the outer edge is also, but not so broadly, darkly edged. In the females, the black is again significantly paler and interrupted in places by yellow. There is an orange spot in the middle of the wing. The underside of both pairs of wings is more strongly colored yellow and lightly dusted dark olive green. The entire edge has a fine red border. The black spot on the forewings can be found along with a few other submarginal spots along the outer edge and on the underside. On the hind wings there is a light, reddish-edged spot instead of the orange one, which is adjoined by another very small spot. The dark row of submarginal spots on the forewings continues on the outer edge of the hindwings, but is only faintly recognizable.

Similar species

Occurrence

The animals are migrant butterflies and occur in south-east Europe, north-west Turkey , across central Asia east to Japan . They also live in Somalia and Ethiopia . In Central Europe they are spread as far as the Alpine foothills of Lower Austria and have even been found a few times in Upper Austria . There are also first records of the species in Bavaria , such as Vilshofen near Passau . The first records from Austria come from 1990. They can be found wherever their caterpillar forage plants grow, even at great heights. In Asia they rise to the vegetation limit at around 4,500 meters.

Way of life

It has been documented from northeast Greece that the species crosses with the postillon . These specimens have characteristics of both species. The overwintering takes place in the caterpillar stage.

The oligophagous caterpillars feed on alfalfa ( Medicago sativa ) and of several other legumes such as from alfalfa ( Medicago ), clover ( Trifolium ), birdsfoot trefoil ( Lotus ), Esparsetten ( Onobrychis ) and sweet clover ( Melilotus ).

The moths fly in two to five generations from mid-March to October.

supporting documents

literature

  • Joseph T. Verhulst: Les Colias du Globe . tape 1 : texts - text . Goecke and Evers, Keltern 2000, ISBN 3-931374-15-7 .
  • Muhammad Abbas, Muhammad Ather Rafi, Mian Inayatullah, Muhammad Rafique Khan, Harry Pavulaan: Taxonomy and Distribution of Butterflies (Papilionoidea) of the Skardu Region, Pakistan. In: The taxonomic report of the international Lepidoptera survey. 3 (9), 2002, pp. 1-15. ( tils-ttr.org - Taxionomic Report )
  • Tom Tolman, Richard Lewington: The butterflies of Europe and Northwest Africa. Franckh-Kosmos Verlag, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-440-07573-7 .
  • Josef Grieshuber, Gerardo Lamas: A Synonymic List of the Genus Colias FABRICIUS, 1807 (Lepidoptera: Pieridae) . In: Communications of the Munich Entomological Society . tape 97, October 31, 2007, ISSN  0340-4943 , p. 131-171 ( edu.pe [PDF]).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ JT Verhulst: Les Colias du Globe. Volume 1, 2000, p. 51.
  2. ^ Rudolf Eis: Colias erate and Pandoriana pandora in eastern Lower Austria (Lepidoptera). In: Entomological news sheet. 1st year, issue 1, April 15, 1994.
  3. ^ F. Lichtenberger: Lepidopterologische Notes from Upper Austria. In: Contribution Naturk. Upper Austria. 1997.
  4. ^ R. Bolz, A. Geyer: Red list of endangered butterflies of Bavaria. Bavarian State Office for the Environment. (PDF; 74 kB)
  5. ^ Michael Kratochwill: Butterflies Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg.
  6. ^ Wilhelm Hellmann: Colias erate ESP. - also in Austria. In: Journal of the Austrian Working Group. Entomologists. 43rd volume, 1/2, 1991.
  7. ^ Karl Moritz: New observations and reports on Colias erate and Colias crocea. In: Entomological news sheet. 3rd year, 1996 (PDF; 1.7 MB)

Web links

Commons : Colias erate  - collection of images, videos and audio files