Hornet Glasswing

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Hornet Glasswing
Hornet glass-winged (Sesia apiformis)

Hornet glass-winged ( Sesia apiformis )

Systematics
Class : Insects (Insecta)
Order : Butterflies (Lepidoptera)
Family : Glass winged winged (Sesiidae)
Subfamily : Sesiinae
Genre : Sesia
Type : Hornet Glasswing
Scientific name
Sesia apiformis
( Clerck , 1759)
At sight
from the beginning
Mating of hornet glass-winged birds

The hornet-glass-winged or bee-glass-winged ( Sesia apiformis ) is a butterfly from the family of the glass-winged (Sesiidae).

features

The moths reach a wingspan of 30 to 45 millimeters. They have mostly transparent wings, only the wing veins and the edge are scaly brown. Your abdomen is yellow and black, with the last three segments and one further in front of the body yellow, the widest segment in the middle of the abdomen, as well as the seams between the segments being black. This seam is only yellow between the first and second segment. The distinguishing feature to the very similar large willow glass-winged wing ( Sesia bembeciformis ) are two yellow-colored spots on the thorax directly in front of the wing base, the rest of the thorax is black.

With its warning color and behavior , the hornet glass-winged bird reminds potential predators of hornets , who therefore avoid it.

The caterpillars are about 50 millimeters long. They are whitish or yellowish and have a dark brown head and a not so dark brown neck plate. They have very isolated, very short, white hair.

Similar species

Synonyms

  • Aegeria apiformis
  • Sphinx crabroniformis
  • Trochilium apiformis
  • Sesia crabroniformis

Occurrence

The animals are common in Central Europe , particularly close to water. They live in open, slightly damp terrain, such as B. on water banks, with stocks of their forage plants.

Way of life

Flight and caterpillar times

The moths fly from the end of May to the end of July, the caterpillars are found from August to May, with two overwintering periods in between.

Food of the caterpillars

The caterpillars feed on the wood of the quaking aspen ( Populus tremula ) and black poplar ( Populus nigra ) and on other poplar species in whose trunks and roots they live. Sometimes they can also be found in pastures such as B. in sallow willows ( Salix caprea ).

development

The females lay their eggs on the bark of the forage plants. The caterpillars that hatch from it bore themselves into the bark and initially only lived close to it. Only later do they eat their way deeper into the lower trunk area and the roots, whereby towards the end of development, after three to four years, the feeding tunnel is again eaten towards the bark. At the end of this corridor, the doll's chamber is hollowed out, in which the cocoon is then built from wood shavings and roving threads. The chamber sits just below the surface of the bark, it is only closed to the outside by a membrane-like layer of bark. The animals overwinter in their cocoons and only pupate in spring. Before hatching, the pupa, which is very mobile, pushes itself out of the cocoon and out of the pupa chamber with the help of wreaths of thorns so that the butterfly can hatch. The moths that then sit on the trunk for some time are easy to recognize. What remains is a hole in the trunk with a diameter of about one centimeter, which can still be recognized a long time later as the exit hole for the glass winged bird.

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 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. 60.
  2. ↑ a b Manfred Koch : We identify butterflies. Volume 2: Bears, Spinners, Swarmers and Drills in Germany. 2nd, expanded edition. Neumann, Radebeul / Berlin 1964, DNB 452481929 .
  3. ^ Sesia apiformis. Butterflies-Deutschlands.de, Christian Tolasch, accessed on November 8, 2006 .

literature

  • Günter Ebert: The Butterflies of Baden-Württemberg Volume 5, Moths III (Sesiidae, Arctiidae, Noctuidae). Ulmer Verlag Stuttgart 1997. ISBN 3-8001-3481-0

Web links

Commons : Hornets-Glasflügler  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files