Brass owl
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Brass owl ( Diachrysia chrysitis species complex) |
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| Diachrysia chrysitis | ||||||||||||
| ( Linnaeus , 1758) |
The diachrysia chrysitis ( Diachrysia chrysitis ) is a butterfly ( moth ) from the family of cutworms (Noctuidae). Behind this is a complex of two very closely related species ( D. chrysitis and D. tutti ) or populations whose taxonomic and thus also nomenclature status (species, subspecies or a single variable species) has not yet been conclusively clarified.
features
butterfly
The brass owl is a medium-sized butterfly with a wingspan of 34 to 44 millimeters or 28 to 35 mm. The inner root field and the middle field of the forewings are brown, the outer root field and the border area shimmer shiny brass yellow, green yellow or golden depending on the angle of incidence of light. Occasionally the middle field can be broken or the two brass-colored zones can be connected by a brass-colored bridge, as in the similar species Diachrysia zosimi . The flaws are outlined in brown, the inside in the basic color. The wavy line has a light border, the hemline is thin and brown. The hem is dark brown. The veins can be highlighted in brown from the wavy line. However, the wavy line can also be very indistinct and hardly stand out from the background color. The hind wings are brown-gray or light brown with a crescent-shaped discal spot . The underside of the forewings is also light brown. The underside of the hind wings is somewhat lighter with two narrow outer transverse lines and a crescent-shaped discal patch. The body of the butterfly is furry, on the head there is a clearly erect tuft of hair, followed by further tufts of hair staggered backwards towards the end of the thorax .
egg
The egg is greenish, roughly round with a flat underside. It has strong longitudinal ribs and weaker transverse ribs.
Caterpillar
The caterpillars reach a length of up to 25 millimeters and are colored green. The back lines and side back lines are whitish. Often the lines are completely dissolved and the spine shows irregular V-shaped patterns. In contrast, the side stripes are framed in dark and white. The head is light green or yellow green.
Doll
The pupa is light brown, yellow-green on the belly. The trunk sheath is elongated. The button-shaped cremaster is wrinkled.
Similar species
Geographical distribution and habitat
The brass owl occurs almost all over Europe . In the south the distribution area extends to southern Spain, southern Italy and the Balkan Peninsula . However, it is absent on most of the Greek islands. In the north it extends almost to the Arctic Circle and far into northern Russia. In the east, the distribution area extends to the Far East ( Amur region ) and Japan . The brass owl occurs in almost open, semi-open and forest-near biotopes and is quite common. However, it avoids dense coniferous forests and the higher altitudes of the Alps.
Way of life
The brass owl occurs in two generations per year, the first from mid-May to early July, the second from late July to late September. However, only one generation is trained in climatically unfavorable areas and in the north of the distribution area. In warmer regions and very favorable years z. B. in southern Baden-Württemberg an incomplete third generation can be formed. The moths prefer to fly at night, but they can occasionally also be found during the day. They are strongly attracted to artificial light sources. The moths visit flowers at dusk. The proboscis on the head, which is rolled up when at rest, is used for food intake . But baits are rarely accepted.
The caterpillars feed polyphagously on various low-growing plants such as dead nettle ( Lamium spec.), Nettle ( Urtica spec.), Dandelion ( Taraxacum spec.), Strawberries ( Fragaria ), lung herbs ( Pulmonaria ), adder's head ( Echium ), mint ( Mentha ), dost ( Origanum ), common horehound ( Marrubium vulgare ) and plantain ( Plantago spec.). The offspring of the second generation overwinter in the caterpillar stage and can be found from September to May of the following year. The second generation caterpillars live in June and July. Pupation takes place in a light web on the ground between parts of the plant.
Synonyms
The species was first scientifically described in 1758 by Carl von Linné under the name Phalaena (Noctua) chrysitis . Due to the variability in the wing drawing, numerous infrasubspecific names were suggested in the following period ( aberrations and shapes), some of which are not available for the nomenclature. Whether Diachrysia tutti Kostrowicki, 1961, is a more recent synonym is described in detail in the following chapter.
Systematics
The systematics of this species or the species complex D. chrysitis is extremely complicated and is still discussed controversially in the literature and the results so far are interpreted differently. The "typical" shape has two brass-colored transverse bands that are not connected to one another. It was noticed very early on that in Central Europe, in addition to this typical form of Diachrysia chrysitis, there is a population in which the two brass-colored ribbons are connected to one another by a crossbar. It was named forma juncta by James William Tutt as early as 1892 . In 1961 Andrzej Samuel Kostrowicki proposed the new species Plusia tutti for this "form" , the name juncta was not available as a species name (at that time D. chrysitis was still assigned to the genus Plusia ). He also argued that there are also differences in the morphology of the male genitals of the two species. Subsequent morphological investigations and, above all, breeding experiments put the status of the new species into question again, although the animals can actually be grouped into two populations. However, there are intermediate forms and genital features typical of chrysitis in some tutti specimens and vice versa. Synthetically produced attractant mixtures were later tested in order to be able to distinguish the two populations with the help of different attractant mixtures. It is true that males of the tutti type now mainly flew to one attractant, and males of the chrysitis type mainly the other attractant, but not exclusively. Further investigations (wing scale morphology, electrophoresis studies) did not lead to any clear results either. It is true that the two groups can also be largely separated using these methods. But here too there were outliers in both directions. The tutti type also seems to fly a little earlier on average. However, there is a large area of overlap with the flight times of the chrysitis type. In the Swiss Alps it has been observed that the chrysitis type forms two generations there, but the second generation is incomplete. The tutti type produces only one generation at this level. At an altitude of 1,600 to 1,800 meters, the chrysitis type only forms one generation, the tutti type is missing here. More recent genetic investigations with the help of mtDNA have shown that the distinction between purely genital morphological features ( i.e. chrysitis type and tutti type) could not be genetically confirmed. In contrast, the males (pheromone types) approached by the two different attractants differ genetically. But the genetic differences between the two types of pheromones also turned out to be very minor. The maximum nucleotide difference per site among the haplotypes was about 0.28%, which is at the lower end of the genetic diversity that is otherwise common in butterfly species. The coefficient of differentiation G ST was c. 76.3% ± 11.7%, a typical intraspecific value, i.e. at the subspecies level. All of these studies show that the two populations are not yet completely reproductively separated.
Gene exchange and mixing of the two Central European populations always occurs or still occurs. They must therefore not be referred to as two types in the sense of cladistics . However, so far there is also a lack of studies as to whether a genetic species barrier might only become effective in the F2 or even F3 generation, for example through lower resistance to parasites or lower reproductive success. Ladislaus Rezbanyai-Reser considers D. chrysitis and D. tutti to be "two former geographical subspecies which, as a result of the postglacial area expansion, now fly next to each other across a wide area and because of the differences in the pheromones only slowly but surely mix genetically".
However, these findings only apply to Europe. It was long overlooked that the two forms also occur together in the Far East (Amur region, Japan , Korea , Mongolia , Transbaikalia ). The second population / species was named here in 1913 by William Warren Diachrysia stenochrysis . Here the morphological features (drawing, coloring, genitalia) apparently correlate with each other and the two forms are probably genetically separated, so that there are two types. Unfortunately, there are still no genetic studies on populations from the Far East to confirm the morphological findings. Diachrysia tutti Kostrowicki, 1961 was therefore by Goater et al. (2003 ) treated as a younger synonym of Diachrysia stenochrysis (Warren, 1913). However, this synonymization was made on specimens of D. stenochrysis and D. tutti without detailed comparisons . Pheromone studies were only undertaken later.
The synonymization of Diachrysia tutti Kostrowicki, 1961 with Diachrysia stenochrysis was made by Hille et al. (2007) rejected. You suspect that a third species / population could possibly be present here. Ladislaus Rezbanyai-Reser also doubts the synonymy of the two species. The analysis of the pheromones supports that these are two separate species. The females of Diachrysia stenochrysis from Japan have a different pheromone than the females of Diachrysia chrysitis and also D. tutti . The pheromones of D. chrysitis and D. tutti contain so-called ω5 (Z5-10: OAc) and ω3 components (Z7-10: OAc); albeit in very different proportions. In D. stenochrysis the ω5 components are the only known Plusiinae species that are completely absent and only ω3 components are present. These authors do not explicitly address the problem of whether D. stenochrysis and D. tutti are synonyms. However, they treat D. chrysitis , D. tutti and D. stenochrysis as separate species. The type locality of D. stenochrysis is Ichikishiri (Hokkaido, Japan).
As early as 1997, Axel Steiner suggested in Die Butterlinge Baden-Württemberg (Volume 6) to designate this species (s) as a species complex, i.e. as a Diachrysia chrysitis complex or also as a Diachrysia chrysitis group. As far as we know, this appears to be the most practical suggestion.
Web links
swell
Individual evidence
- ↑ Goater, Ronkay, Fibiger, pp. 191ff.
- ↑ Bellmann, p. 264.
- ↑ Hille, Miller, Erlacher, 2005.
- ↑ a b Ladislaus Rezbanyai – Reser: Another statement against the species independence of Diachrysia chrysitis (LINNAEUS, 1758) & tutti (KOSTROWICKI, 1961) =? Stenochrysis (WARREN, 1913), taking into account the DNA analyzes recently carried out by other researchers with the two taxa (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae). In: Ladislaus Rezbanyai – Reser, Mihály Kádár: 2. European Moth Nights, 1.-3. 7. 2005, a scientific review (Lepidoptera: Macrolepidoptera). 2005 ( PDF ).
- ↑ Hille, Miller, Erlacher, p. 50.
- ↑ Sven Erlacher, Michael A. Miller, Axel Hille: DNA barcoding confirms “pheromone types” in the Diachrysia chrysitis complex (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae). In: Publications of the Museum für Naturkunde Chemnitz. Volume 30, No. 1, Chemnitz 2007 pp. 107-116 ( PDF ).
- ↑ C. Löfstedt, BS Hansson, M. Tóth, G. Szöts, V. Buda, M. Bengtsson, N. Ryrholm, M. Svensson, E. Priesner: Pheromone differences between sibling taxa Diachrysia chrysitis (Linnaeus, 1758) and D . tutti (Kostrowicki, 1961) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae). In: Journal of Chemical Ecology. Volume 20, No. 1, Dordrecht 1984, ISSN 0098-0331 , pp. 91-109.
- ↑ Shin-Ichi Inomata, Atsushi Watanabe, Masahi Nomura, Tetsu Ando: Mating communication systems of four Plusiinae species distributed in Japan: Identification of the sex pheromones and field evaluation. In: Journal of Chemical Ecology. Volume 31, No. 6, Dordrecht 2005, pp. 1429-1442, doi: 10.1007 / s10886-005-5295-0 .
literature
- Heiko Bellmann : The new Kosmos butterfly guide. Butterflies, caterpillars and forage plants. Franckh-Kosmos, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-440-09330-1 .
- Günter Ebert (Ed.): The butterflies of Baden-Württemberg. Volume 6: Nachtfalter IV. Ulmer Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-8001-3482-9 , 622 pp.
- Axel Hille, Michael Miller, Sven Erlacher: DNA sequence variation at the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I subunit among pheromotypes of the sibling taxa Diachrysia chrysitis and D. tutti (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae). In: Zoologica Scripta. Volume 34, No. 1, Oxford 2005, ISSN 0300-3256 , pp. 49-56.
- Barry Goater, Lázló Ronkay, Michael Fibiger: Catocalinae & Plusiinae Noctuidae Europaeae. Volume 10, Sorø 2003, ISBN 87-89430-08-5 , 452 pp.
Web links
- Diachrysia chrysitis in Fauna Europaea
- Lepiforum e. V. Photos