Forest meadow bird

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Forest meadow bird
Forest meadow bird (Coenonympha hero)

Forest meadow bird ( Coenonympha hero )

Systematics
Class : Insects (Insecta)
Order : Butterflies (Lepidoptera)
Family : Noble butterfly (Nymphalidae)
Subfamily : Eye butterflies (Satyrinae)
Genre : Coenonympha
Type : Forest meadow bird
Scientific name
Coenonympha hero
( Linnaeus , 1761)

The forest meadow bird ( Coenonympha hero ) is a butterfly ( butterfly ) from the family of noble butterflies (Nymphalidae). The kind epithet is dedicated to the priestess Hero from Greek mythology .

features

butterfly

The moths reach a wingspan of 24 to 34 millimeters. They have dark brown wing tops, which are provided with six black, white cored and reddish brown ringed eye spots near the hind wing edge. These also shine through to the light brown underside and are bounded on the inside by a narrow, jagged white band.

egg

The egg is blue-green in color, somewhat flattened above and below and provided with indistinct longitudinal ribs.

Caterpillar

Adult caterpillars are light green in color and have a dark, light-lined back line and yellowish side stripes.

Doll

The pupae are light green to blue-green in color and show one to two thin, dark longitudinal stripes on each side. They are trained as falling dolls.

Similar species

The species of roughly the same size

differ in the yellow-brown to reddish-brown color of the wing tops. In addition, the white band on the underside of the hind wing is usually wider than that of Coenonympha hero .

The river valley meadow bird ( Coenonympha oedippus ), which is dark brown on the upper side of the wing, lacks the white band on the underside of the hind wing.

distribution and habitat

The forest meadow bird is distributed locally from Western Europe eastwards through the temperate zone to East Asia (Japan and Korea). The species occurs in the northern foothills of the Alps at altitudes of up to about 1300 meters. It prefers to live on moor meadows, moist forest meadows and in floodplains .

Subspecies

In addition to the nominate form Coenonympha hero hero , which occurs in Central Europe, a distinction is made between the following subspecies :

  • Coenonympha hero coreana Matsumura , 1927, Korea
  • Coenonympha hero latefasciata Matsumura , 1925, Kunashir
  • Coenonympha hero perseis Lederer , 1853, Asia to the Pacific
  • Coenonympha hero pilwonis Matsumura , 1925, Sakhalin
  • Coenonympha hero sabaeus Fabricius , 1775, Eastern Europe, Urals , Western Siberia

Way of life

The moths fly in one generation, mostly in May and June. They have rarely been observed sucking on flowers and like to rest with folded wings on the leaves of low bushes. The caterpillars hatch from the eggs in July, overwinter and pupate in May of the following year. Their food plants are riding grasses ( Calamagrotis ) as well as fescue ( Festuca ), Schmielen ( Deschampsia ) and sedge species ( Carex ).

Danger

The forest meadow bird has become very rare in the German federal states due to the drainage of many original habitats and is considered extinct in some regions, accordingly it is on the Red List of endangered species in category 1 ("threatened with extinction") or category 0 ( "Extinct or lost"). Only in Baden-Württemberg is it classified in category 2 (“highly endangered”).

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Arnold Spuler: The butterflies of Europe , Volume 1, E. Schweizerbart'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart, 1908
  2. ^ A b Walter Forster , Theodor A. Wohlfahrt : The butterflies of Central Europe. Volume 2: Butterflies. (Rhopalocera and Hesperiidae). Franckh'sche Verlagshandlung, Stuttgart 1955, DNB 456642188 .
  3. ^ A b Günter Ebert, Erwin Rennwald: The butterflies of Baden-Württemberg. Vol. 2 Ulmer, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-8001-3459-4
  4. Hans-Josef Weidemann: Butterfly: observe, determine , Naturbuch-Verlag, Augsburg 1995, ISBN 3-89440-115-X
  5. Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (Ed.): Red List of Endangered Animals in Germany. Landwirtschaftsverlag, Münster 1998, ISBN 3-89624-110-9

literature

  • Günter Ebert, Erwin Rennwald: The butterflies of Baden-Württemberg. Vol. 2 Ulmer, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-8001-3459-4 .
  • Manfred Koch : We determine butterflies. Volume 1: Butterfly. 4th enlarged edition. Neumann, Radebeul / Berlin 1966, DNB 457244224 , p. 90f.
  • Tom Tolman, Richard Lewington: The butterflies of Europe and Northwest Africa , Franckh-Kosmos Verlags-GmbH & Co, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-440-07573-7
  • Hans-Josef Weidemann: Butterfly: observe, determine , Naturbuch-Verlag, Augsburg 1995, ISBN 3-89440-115-X

Web links

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