Colias marcopolo

Marco Polo's colias
Male
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Pieridae
Genus: Colias
Species: C. marcopolo
Binomial name
Colias marcopolo
(Grum-Grshimailo, 1888)
Synonyms
  • Colias marcopolo f. diana Schulte, 1989
  • Colias nicopolo Röber, [1907]

Colias marcopolo, the Marco Polo's colias, is a butterfly in the family Pieridae found in the Pamir Mountains the Hindu Kush and Afghanistan.[1]

Description

Colias marcopolo is one of the smaller species. Upperside of male pale sulphur yellow, with a not very broad greyish black distal marginal band and a nonconspicuous large yellow spot on the hindwing, but without a black middle spot on the forewing. Underside of forewing dirty yellow, with greyish-green distal margin; hindwing darker greyish green, with whitish middle spot. The female is yolk colour above and below, the distal marginal band being broader and having the inner edge diffuse, the forewing bearing yellow submarginal spots. The form with brighter yellow upperside, narrower dark distal margins and a black middle spot on the forewing above and below, is named ab.? nicolopolo.

Biology

The larva feeds on species of Astragalus.

Montane habitat in Afghanistan

Biotope

A montane species found between 3000 and 5000 metres a.s.l.

Subspecies

Etymology

The species is named for Marco Polo.

References

  1. "Colias". funet.fi.

External links

Wikispecies has information related to: Colias marcopolo


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/9/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.