Large St. John's Wort Spanner

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Large St. John's Wort Spanner
Great St. John's wort spanner (Aplocera plagiata)

Great St. John's wort spanner ( Aplocera plagiata )

Systematics
Class : Insects (Insecta)
Order : Butterflies (Lepidoptera)
Family : Spanner (Geometridae)
Subfamily : Larentiinae
Genre : Aplocera
Type : Large St. John's Wort Spanner
Scientific name
Aplocera plagiata
( Linnaeus , 1758)
On the forage plant, with the underside of the butterfly visible

The Great St. John's Wort Spanner ( Aplocera plagiata ) is a butterfly ( moth ) from the Spanner family (butterfly) (Geometridae).

features

With a wingspan of 27 to 40 millimeters, the Great St. John's Wort Spanner is one of the larger members of the Spanner family. The forewings have a gray to blue-gray basic color. A band consisting of transverse lines, which is only filled with black at the front edge, is located in the basal field, in the middle field and behind the middle. The outer transverse band forms two spikes on the front edge of the wing. The moths look very similar to the sand heather St. John's wort spanner ( Aplocera efformata ), which was only recognized as a separate species in 1923. The Great St. John's Wort Spanner can be distinguished from this by the shape and length of the last abdomen segment. In A. plagiata it is a third to a quarter as long as the entire abdomen, but in A. efformata it is significantly shorter. In the females of A. plagiata , the abdomen ends pointedly, while in A. efformata it is blunt. The males can be differentiated by their valves, which protrude from under the wings of the dormant butterfly.

Similar species

Subspecies

  • Aplocera plagiata hausmanni Expòsito Hermosa, 1998
  • Aplocera plagiata plagiata (Linnaeus, 1758)
  • Aplocera plagiata scotica Richardson, 1952. Blue-gray coloration.

to form

  • Aplocera efformata f. tangens Fritsch. Ribbons in front of and behind the middle collide in the midfield
  • Aplocera efformata f. fasciata Garbsk. Like f. tangent ; Ribbons that form a wide ribbon are united to the inner edge.
  • Aplocera efformata f. suffusa Prout. Both bands form a single blackish band in the midfield.
  • Aplocera efformata f. ruberata Rbl. The middle field is darkened brownish between the bands.

Synonyms

  • Anaitis plagiata

Occurrence

The distribution area of ​​the Great St. John's Wort Spanner extends from the Iberian Peninsula through Europe and Asia Minor to Kashmir . Furthermore, the species occurs in Western and Central Europe including the British Isles , as far as southern Fennoscandia and in all of Eastern Europe as far as southern Russia . It can also be found in North America .

Way of life

The Great St. John's Wort Spanner can be found on warm slopes, grassy embankments, dry forest edges, plains , lean meadows and mountain heaths. The moths suckle on various flowers at night such as B. Common goldenrod ( Solidago virgaureae ), heather ( Calluna vulgaris ), bladder campion ( Silene vulgaris ), Common Natternkopf ( Echium vulgare ), butterfly bush ( Buddleia davidii ), knapweed ( Centaurea spp.), Thistles ( Cirsium spec.). The moths can also be observed using artificial light sources.

The females lay the eggs in rows of three to eight on the underside of the leaf below the corolla.

St. John's wort ( Hypericum perforatum ) is named as a caterpillar forage plant . The half-adult caterpillars are mostly found on the fruits, while the adult caterpillars lie curled up on the ground.

Flight and caterpillar times

The Great St. John's Wort Spanner forms two generations a year, which fly from mid-May to mid-July and from late July to early October. The first generation caterpillars can be observed in September and, after overwintering, in April the following year. The second generation caterpillars appear from July to August. Only one generation emerges in the north of its range.

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Manfred Koch , Wolfgang Heinicke, Bernd Müller: We determine butterflies. Volume 4: Spanner. 2nd, improved and enlarged edition. Neumann, Leipzig / Radebeul 1976, DNB 780451570 .
  2. ↑ Lepiforum e. V .: Determination aid of the Lepiforum for the butterfly species found in Germany, Austria and Switzerland . online: http://www.lepiforum.de/cgi-bin/lepiwiki.pl?Aplocera_Plagiata (accessed on December 1, 2006)
  3. ↑ Aplocera plagiata hausmanni in Fauna Europaea. Retrieved November 30, 2006
  4. ↑ Aplocera plagiata plagiata in Fauna Europaea. Retrieved November 30, 2006
  5. ↑ Bernard Skinner: Color Identification Guide to Moths of the British Isles , Penguin UK 1999, ISBN 0-670-87978-9
  6. ↑ a b c Günter Ebert (Ed.): The Butterflies of Baden-Württemberg Volume 8, Nachtfalter VI (Spanner (Geometridae) 1st part), Ulmer Verlag Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-800-13497-7

Web links

Commons : Aplocera plagiata  - album with pictures, videos and audio files