Do you know what a butterfly looks like?

The most effective and the largest representative of the Nymphalides family of the Lepidoptera group is the butterfly mourning woman. This flying, widely spread throughout Eurasia, with the exception of the tropics, is absent only in the territory of the Mediterranean states, but at the same time some individuals fly to the tundra territories. Once imported to America, the mourning woman spread from Canada to Mexico. For unknown reasons, in the forties of the twentieth century, the number of mourning mice sharply decreased. In this regard, in 1997, it was listed in the Red Data Book of the Smolensk region in the third category, which includes species distributed in restricted areas that are threatened with extinction in the event of a change in natural or anthropogenic conditions.

Appearance

Traurnitsa - butterfly, received its name due to its color. Its coloring is so memorable that it leaves a great impression for many years. Most accurately, as the butterfly looks like a mourning woman, described by S.T. Aksakov. Brilliant, covered with a lot of colored pollen, velvet dark brown, coffee, and at a certain angle and dark purple wings trimmed with a white or yellow serrated fringe, along which there are bright blue spots. The wingspan of the butterfly reaches 7-10 cm. Like all nymphalids, the mouth of butterflies is a proboscis that folds into a spiral and unfolds when the butterfly eats. Its front legs are short, with no claws.

origin of name

Carl Linnaeus, knowing how a butterfly looks like a mourning woman, gave her the name antiopa in 1758, in honor of the heroine of the Euripides tragedy, telling about the sufferings and troubles that struck Antioch - the daughter of the Theban king, Nictea, seduced by Zeus, who appeared in the image of a satyr, and gave birth to him Two twins married to the Epic.

Studying mourners, scientists drew attention to the influence of external temperatures prevailing during the development of the pupa on the subsequent intensity of the color of the insect's wings. Depending on the climatic conditions of the habitat, there are differences in how the butterfly looks like a mourning woman - the color of the wing becomes darker, the size of blue spots diminishes, and the density of black dusting on the rim changes. Thus, in wintering butterflies that flew from wintering places in early spring, the fringe is almost white. However, this does not apply to butterflies that have wintered in the East - they have a yellow band. In July-September, in a new generation of mourners, the pupae of which developed in the warm season, the fringes are bright yellow.

Development

In June the female lays up to 100 eggs. Caterpillars hatch in June-July and stay in dense groups until the pupation period. The way a butterfly looks like a mourning woman at the stage of a caterpillar is familiar to many. Black with white small dots and bright red spots (up to 7 pieces) often creep between the spines of the caterpillar along the leaves of birch, alder, maple, ash and other plants that are their food. The stage of development of the pupa is about 11 days. The butterfly feeds mainly on the juice of trees, so it can often be found on birches during a period of intense juicing.