Canarian admiral

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Canarian admiral
Canarian Admiral (Vanessa vulcania)

Canarian Admiral ( Vanessa vulcania )

Systematics
Class : Insects (Insecta)
Order : Butterflies (Lepidoptera)
Family : Noble butterfly (Nymphalidae)
Subfamily : Nymphalinae
Genre : Vanessa
Type : Canarian admiral
Scientific name
Vanessa vulcania
Godart , 1819
Canary Admiral's wing undersides

The Canary Admiral ( Vanessa vulcania ) is a butterfly ( butterflies ) of the genus Vanessa , which belongs to the noble butterfly family (Nymphalidae).

features

The moths reach a wingspan of 50 to 60 millimeters. The forewings are black in the disc area with four, very differently sized, relatively small white spots. Towards the base of the wings there is a crooked, red band with three roughly triangular, black spots of different sizes. The base of the wings is brown. The hind wings are predominantly brown in color, only towards the outer edge they have a red zone with black dots. This is usually limited to the brown area by a black line. The edge of the wing is booked several times. The only slightly extended tips are colored black. At the distal point of the inner edge of the hind wing sits a small, elongated blue mirror.

Similar species

The differences between the Canary Admiral and the Indian Admiral are slight, which is why some authors consider it only a subspecies of the Indian Admiral. The distal white spot of V. vulcania is broken up into a row of dots in V. indica . The more proximally located white spots are somewhat larger in the Indian admiral. The red band is a little narrower. On the hind wings the black spots in the red zone are a little stronger.

Well distinguishable from the Canary Admiral is the "ordinary" admiral, whose black zone of the fore wing is much larger. The white spots in it are also significantly larger. But the red band is much narrower and without black spots.

distribution

The moth occurs only on the Canary Islands El Hierro , La Gomera , La Palma , Tenerife and Gran Canaria as well as on Madeira and in the extreme southwest of the Iberian Peninsula . It is a common butterfly there. The animals live from around sea level to 1,700 meters in the somewhat neglected cultivated land and in gardens, as well as in the zone of Laurisilva on Madeira.

The species has already been found in Thuringia in single specimens (Gerisch 1978). Since the Canary Admiral is not known as a migrant butterfly, active immigration of the butterfly to Central Europe appears unlikely. It has been suggested that vegetables were imported from the Canary Islands. However, the first specimens were already reported in the 1930s, when the import of vegetables from the Canaries to Germany certainly did not play a significant role. Thus, the evidence of the Canary Admiral in Germany remains a mystery.

Way of life

The caterpillars feed on nettles . In the deeper vegetation zones this is the small nettle ( Urtica urens ), which is also native to continental Europe , and in Laurisilva the mulberry-leaved nettle ( Urtica morifolia ), which is endemic to the Canaries .

Flight time

The species flies in several generations throughout the year.

Taxonomic status

Some authors consider the Canary Admiral only as a subspecies of the Indian admiral (as Vanessa indica vulcania ). In the Fauna Europaea , however, it is listed as a separate species and this view is followed here.

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Erwin Rennwald: Vanessa vulcania (GODART, 1819) - Canary admiral. Lepiforum e. V., accessed on January 23, 2015 .

literature

  • Marcos Báez: Mariposas de Canarias. Editorial Rueda, Madrid 1998. ISBN 84-7207-110-3 .
  • H. Gerisch: Again: The Indian Admiral in Vogtland (Lep., Nymph.) . In: Entomological Reports 1978: pp. 102-104, Berlin 1978, ISSN  0425-1075 .
  • Tom Tolman & Richard Lewington: The Butterflies of Europe and Northwest Africa. Franckh-Kosmos, Stuttgart 1998. ISBN 3-440-07573-7 .

Web links

Commons : Canarian Admiral ( Vanessa vulcania )  - Collection of images, videos and audio files