Big fire butterfly

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Big fire butterfly
Great fire butterfly (Lycaena dispar), ♂

Great fire butterfly ( Lycaena dispar ), ♂

Systematics
Class : Insects (Insecta)
Order : Butterflies (Lepidoptera)
Family : Bluebirds (Lycaenidae)
Subfamily : Lycaeninae
Genre : Lycaena
Type : Big fire butterfly
Scientific name
Lycaena dispar
( Haworth , 1802)
female
Wing undersides (here a female)

The Large copper butterfly ( Lycaena dispar ) is a butterfly ( butterfly ) from the family of Gossamer (Lycaenidae).

features

The moths reach a wingspan of 27 to 40 millimeters. The extinct subspecies from England L. dispar dispar even reached spans of up to 50 millimeters and is therefore popular with collectors. The two sexes show a pronounced sexual dichroism . The males have strong orange-red colored wing tops, the edge of which is finely colored black and fringed with white. On each wing they have a fine, black line-shaped spot in the middle. The upper sides of the wings of the females are a dark brown dominated coloration, the edge, the wing veins and the hind wings, apart from an orange band near the outer edge, are dark brown in color. On the forewing, the areas between the wing veins are dark orange-red. These elongated fields each have a distinctive, dark brown spot that forms a spotty band approximately in the middle of the wings. The undersides of both sexes are colored the same. The hind wings are gray to blue-gray and have an orange band near the outer edge and numerous black, light-edged points. The underside of the forewings is pale orange in color, has the same points and a brown-gray band on the outer edge.

The caterpillars are about 21 millimeters long. They are green in color and have numerous, very fine white spots all over the body. They also have a very faint, dark topline and hard-to-see, oblique strokes on the sides.

Similar species

Subspecies

  • Lycaena dispar dispar , (Haworth, 1802) , Huntingdonshire , extinct
  • Lycaena dispar batava , (Oberthür, 1920) , Friesland , introduced to Huntingdonshire in the 1920s .
  • Lycaena dispar rutila , (Werneburg, 1864) , in the rest of the distribution area

Occurrence

The animals are quite scattered in Europe . They are found in south-west Spain , north-east France , north and south-west Germany , the Baltic states , south-east Europe and northern Turkey , up to an altitude of 1,000 meters. They live in moors and on wet meadows , especially in river valleys of large rivers. They also prefer smaller reed stands or raised stems on which the moths sunbathe. Their populations have been severely decimated almost everywhere. In the south-west of Germany, the wanderer-loving species is apparently spreading again in places.

Way of life

The moths suckle on horse mint ( Mentha longifolia ) as well as on ragweeds ( Senecio spec. ).

Flight and caterpillar times

They fly in one generation in the north from June to July; in hot years, as in the south of Central Europe, there are two generations, one from mid-May to June and a second, stronger one from late July to late August. L. dispar batava flies in one generation from June to July. The subspecies L. dispar rutila flies in two generations from late May to June and in August. In cold regions, however, these only fly in one generation, and in the hot, southern regions in three generations.

Food of the caterpillars

The caterpillars are pond dock ( Rumex hydrolapathum ), the subspecies L. dispar rutila also feeds on other dock species such as curly dock ( Rumex crispus ) and water dock ( Rumex aquaticus ).

development

Great fire moth eggs. Usually the females lay only one egg, rarely several. The moths have already hatched.

The females usually lay their eggs one by one on top of the forage plants. The caterpillars that hatch from it feed on the underside of the leaf and often rest on the midrib. The caterpillars of a second generation overwinter as young caterpillars and only pupate in the next spring on the lower part of the stem of their food plant in a light yellow-brown belt pupa that hangs upside down. Young caterpillars eat hollows in the leaves and can survive flooding of their plants in them for several weeks during the winter.

Hazard and protection

Lycaena dispar is registered as an FFH species and is considered to be critically endangered.

  • Red list Germany : 2 (endangered).
  • Close up view of an egg. The "cake" shape can be clearly seen and is the safest identifier in the field.
    IUCN : endangered

The nominate subspecies L. dispar dispar was exterminated in England in the 19th century by the destruction of wetlands. The species was reintroduced there from 1927 with animals from Friesland.

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Heiko Bellmann : The new Kosmos butterfly guide, butterflies, caterpillars and forage plants . Franckh-Kosmos, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-440-09330-1 , p. 136 .
  2. ↑ a b L.K. Barnett, MS Warren: Species Action Plan - Large Copper, Lycaena dispar. British Butterfly Conservation Society. 1995
  3. ↑ a b c d Tom Tolman, Richard Lewington: The butterflies of Europe and Northwest Africa . Franckh-Kosmos, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-440-07573-7 , p. 70 .
  4. ↑ Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (Ed.): Red List of Endangered Animals in Germany . Landwirtschaftsverlag, Münster 1998, ISBN 3-89624-110-9 , p. 95 .
  5. ↑ Lycaena dispar in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2006 Posted by: M. Gimenez Dixon, 1996. Retrieved on January 16 of 2007.

literature

  • Hans-Josef Weidemann: Butterflies: observe, determine . Naturbuch-Verlag, Augsburg 1995, ISBN 3-89440-115-X .
  • Butterflies. 2. Special part: Satyridae, Libytheidae, Lycaenidae, Hesperiidae . In: Günter Ebert, Erwin Rennwald (eds.): The butterflies of Baden-Württemberg . 1st edition. tape 2 . Ulmer, Stuttgart (Hohenheim) 1991, ISBN 3-8001-3459-4 .
  • Manfred Koch : We determine butterflies. Volume 1: Butterfly. 4th enlarged edition. Neumann, Radebeul / Berlin 1966, DNB 457244224 .

Web links

Commons : Large fire butterfly  album with pictures, videos and audio files