Papilio eurymedon
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Papilio eurymedon |
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| Papilio eurymedon | ||||||||||||
| Lucas , 1852 |
Papilio eurymedon is a butterfly from the family of the knightly butterflies (Papilionidae).
features
The moths reach a wingspan of 64 to 90 millimeters. Their basic color is yellow with a black pattern, as is the case with many knight butterflies, but the black mostly dominates the faded light yellow color. The forewings have a very broad black outer edge, in which small yellowish spots are enclosed near the edge. The tiger stripes are not sharply demarcated and somewhat blurred, the fourth of them, near the wing tip, actually consists of three more or less merging spots. The wing veins are finely colored black. The hind wings have an even wider black outer edge, on the edge of which yellowish, arched spots are bordered, which are colored more and more orange towards the black tail. The outer edge is a little wavy. The first tiger stripe of the front wing continues on the hind wings, the wing veins are also colored black. At the lower end of the wing's inner edge, which is also rimmed black, there is a blue, black and red colored eye spot, around which the black is partly covered with blue dusty spots. In females, these blue spots run along the entire outer edge, with them the arc spots are also larger. The underside of the wings is colored like the upper side, but the spots along the outer edge are larger on the forewings. On the hind wings the veins are more strongly colored black and the blue-dusted spots are more pronounced. The body of the moth is black and has a yellow vertical stripe on both sides.
Similar species
Occurrence
The animals occur along the west coast of the USA from California to British Columbia in Canada . You can find them to the east as far as Montana . They live in light mountainous areas, in forest areas and in river valleys.
Way of life
The moths suck nectar from flowers, but occasionally also nutrients from puddles and damp places. The males fly around in search of females. These lay their eggs one by one on the leaves of their forage plants. The caterpillars rest on silk pads that they spin in rolled leaves. They overwinter in the pupa .
Flight times
They fly in the south in several generations from March to August, in the north from April to July.
Food of the caterpillars
The caterpillars feed on trees and bushes of the rose family (Rosaceae), buckthorn family (Rhamnaceae) and birch family (Betulaceae).
swell
Individual evidence
- ↑ Papilio eurymedon. butterflycorner.net, Ing.Thomas Neubauer, accessed on November 29, 2006 .
- ↑ a b c d Papilio eurymedon. Big Sky Institute at Montana State University, accessed December 1, 2006 .
literature
- James A. Scott: The butterflies of North America. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California 1986, ISBN 0-8047-1205-0 .
