This week's butterfly is Allancastria cerisyi, the Eastern Festoon. (A festoon is something that drapes or droops about in a decorative way, as do these mini-swallowtail butterflies.) The genus was also called Zerynthia, so as we consider butterflies in alphabetical order, the Festoons have jumped from the back to the front of the line. An even older genus name was Thais.
A. cerisyi looks similar to A. caucasica. It is found at lower altitudes and more southerly latitudes. As with caucasica, individuals can look different depending on hereditary and environmental conditions, but cerisyi is a little bigger than caucasica and has been a little better documented. It is found near the Mediterranean coast in Greece, Macedonia, Turkey, Romania, and Israel, between March and July.
The most commonly seen and photographed type of this butterfly is white with black and red spots. They can be yellow rather than white, and can have more black and red. As with caucasica, some individuals look more black than white. On some individuals the red spots run together and form a band of red. Some individuals have a red spot at the top of the hind wings, where the wings overlap. .
Photo from Insects.pro
Though often found and photographed by people who look for them, this species is somewhat rare, and is protected by law in Israel and some other countries.
As with caucasica, the "swallowtail" points at the corners of the hind wings may form short tails that stick out separately from the wings, or merely markings on the borders of the wings--and either way, as seen on the individual above, they may be bitten off by predators. The wingspan is two to two and a half inches. The tails add only a millimeter or two to the length of a wing, if that much.
A. cerisyi hatch out of round, pale greenish eggs stuck to the undersides of food plants. They can eat any of four species of vines in the genus Aristolochia.
Photo by Andrea Baruzzi.
Caterpillars can be gray or black, with yellow-orange bristles. The skin on the sides may match the skin on the back, or have contrasting stripes of yellow or white. They have a slightly humpbacked look like the full-sized Swallowtails.
Photo by Diego Reggienti.
In between the stiff branching bristles the caterpillar has shorter, softer hairs, and even as an adult butterfly it will look less smooth than most butterflies, though not quite as furry as caucasica.
They pupate in winter and emerge in spring. The pupae are drab and look like boring, broken little curled-up dead leaves.
No comments:
Post a Comment