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uffepuffe

Butterfly or moth or else?

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Greetings my friende. A few weeks back I was far up in northen norway for the best grayling fishing of my life. The weather was cold and windy and we did not see many insect during this week, but one insect that emerged in hords as soon as the sun was shining was this very beautiful butterfly or moth or... well, what is it? The swedish common name for it (the guides told me) would translate to something like "blod drop swarmer". I find it very beautiful and would like to know more of it, but has not been able to find anything in my litterature or on the internet. So any help is greatly appreciated.

 

/Ulf

 

P.S. The grayling and trout loved them too! :)

 

 

 

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Roger, I am pretty sure they didn't, the only time I saw them on the water was as "spent" or dying. One kinda funny thing about them was that they seemed very attracted to the colour blue. I had a blue shirt on one day and they were all over, and when my friend left his blue camping plate lying outside it looked like this in just minutes

 

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I just found out that the exact species is Zygaena exulans.

 

An interesting fact is that the red spots indicate that it's toxic. I've been e-mailing with a professor at the Swedish national museum of history and nature about this. He told me that this moth contains large amount of Cyanide and was a bit suprissed about the fact that the Grayling actually ate them! My (wild) theory is that the Grayling onle took the insects when they were dead and that the amount of cyanide then had decreased alot.

 

Ulf

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I was just going to send you an email address of Nils Ryrholm, a Swedish lepidopterist ([email protected])?

 

There's a web page for Swedish lepidoptera:

http://www.bostream.nu/butter/

 

Speaking of cyanide, the group of moths in Zygaenidae are very brightly colored, diurnal moths. The larvae synthesize cyanoglucides, and are resistant to cyanide. Entomology collectors use cyanide jars to quickly kill specimens, but these critters can survive for quite some time in these jars. Because these moths are quite toxic, and brightly colored, other species of moths have converged in appearance and color to take advantage of the avoidance predators have of these species.

 

I find that many people aren't really aware of the diversity of Lepidoptera, especially that the great majority is represented by the huge diversity of "moths," many of which are active only during night. I often demostrate this by "blacklighting," which one can easily contruct (for about $30) from supplies from a hardware store and a white sheet upon which to project the light. Butterflies, which are much better studied, have an estimated 14,000 species, whereas the total number of Lepidoptera (when you put the moths in) is around 160,000, with the projected real number over 300,000. (As for most insect groups, the tropical regions are still poorly known).

 

Althought they share a common Triassic ancestor with the Trichoptera (caddisflies), the huge radiation of species is closely associated with Cretaceous radiation of angiosperms. Their ecological diversity is also interesting. Although most of you know there are aquatic and semi-aquatic species, there are also species of Lepidoptera that are predaceous. There's a species that allows itself to be carried off by ants, where, once in the nest, they appease ants with secretions while they prey on ant larvae and pupae. There are species that are parasitoids of other insects (another form of predation), whereby the female lays an egg on another insect, which hatches and feeds off the living host until the latter's death. There's even a southeast Asian species of moth (Calpe eustrigata), which probably diverged from related species' feeding by piercing fruit, that feeds on blood, including from humans.

 

Sorry, couldn't resist from writing the above....

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