Grass mother
| Grass mother | ||||||||||||
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Moth ( Euthrix potatoria ), male |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Euthrix potatoria | ||||||||||||
| ( Linnaeus , 1758) |
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The grass hen or drinker ( Euthrix potatoria ) is a butterfly ( moth ) from the family of clucking (Lasiocampidae).
features
The moths reach a wingspan of 40 to 65 millimeters. They have an ocher-yellow to dark red-brown basic wing color, whereby the males are usually darker than the females and can sometimes have a purple sheen. On the forewings, two dark brown oblique lines run around the thirds of the wings, the front one being almost straight. Between the rear clearly sloping line and the distal edge of the wing there is a dark brown serrated band exactly in the middle, but this is usually only weakly indicated. In the middle of the forewing near the wing's leading edge there is a larger and a small white spot, which are occasionally browned.
The caterpillars are approx. 75 millimeters long and are unmistakable with their bright color. They have a dark gray basic color that turns bluish depending on age. A band of yellow to orange spots runs to the left and right of the back. Short, dense, black tufts of hair rise next to them. Dense, white tufts of hair grow down the sides and are arranged in pairs or triples. The caterpillars are mostly covered with long, rust-brown hair, in addition they have an orange-red tuft on the back of the third segment and a black, clearly contrasting, long tuft of hair on the penultimate segment. Your brown hair breaks off when you touch it and gets stuck in human skin.
Similar species
- Mother Plum ( Odonestis pruni )
Occurrence
The animals live in sparse forests as well as in reed beds , on bog meadows and in other wetlands . They are common in Central Europe , but their populations are clearly declining in some places . Their distribution area extends all over Europe , excluding the far north and the Mediterranean area and extends east to Japan .
Way of life
Flight and caterpillar times
The nocturnal moths (the females are crepuscular) fly from the end of June to mid-August, the caterpillars are found from September to June of the following year.
Food of the caterpillars
The caterpillars feed on various sweet grasses , such as. B. from reed ( Phragmites australis ), reed canary grass ( Phalaris arundinacea ) and Moorgrass ( Molinia caerulea ). Sometimes they also eat sour grasses .
development
The females lay their oval, flattened, greenish eggs, which are patterned gray-green and white, individually or in piles on grass . The caterpillars are also nocturnal, but also sit on top of the grass during the day. They regularly consume drops of water, which is why the moths are also called drinkers. In the third stage (L3), the animals hibernate sitting on grass. In the next spring they feed until May and then pupate in a parchment-like cocoon , which is covered with bristles, hanging from blades of grass.
swell
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Heiko Bellmann : The new cosmos butterfly guide. Butterflies, caterpillars and forage plants. Franckh-Kosmos, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-440-09330-1 , p. 80.
- ↑ Hans-Josef Weidemann, Jochen Köhler: Moths. Weirdos and hawkers. Naturbuch-Verlag, Augsburg 1996, ISBN 3-89440-128-1 , p. 92ff.
- ↑ Euthrix potatoria. Butterflies-Deutschlands.de, Christian Tolasch, accessed on November 7, 2006 .
Web links
- www.lepiforum.de
- www.schmetterling-raupe.de
- Moths and Butterflies of Europe and North Africa (English)
- Guide to the moths of Great Britain and Ireland (English)
- Euthrix potatoria at Fauna Europaea