Apollo Felder (lat. PARNASSIS FELDERI) – The daily type of butterfly, which belongs to the sailboat family and is the endemic of the Far East. He received his name in honor of a scientist who made the greatest contribution to the study of many Far Eastern butterflies, including this – Rudolf Felder.
Appearance
This butterfly is much larger in size than many other representatives of the family. The scope of its wings can reach sixty millimeters, which is almost twice as much as others. The color of the wings of the male is white, and on the entire area there are black veins, as well as a small black edge. On the front wings is a weak and almost transparent black pattern, which consists of a pair of spots in peculiar cells near it. In addition, the external bandage has a wavy shape and can quite often break out in the middle. The rear wings are not particularly different from the front, but closer to the center their edge lines expand, forming a fullfledged border that occupies most of the entire wing. In the corners it has two black spots and several transverse lines. The pattern from below is the same as on the front wings.
The differences between the appearance of the female lies in a more developed drawing of dark color: the dressings are located throughout the wings space, without breaking off in the middle, as happens in males, and also on the hind wings you can see many spots of a halfmoon shape. In addition, there are several dots in the back, which are absent in males. Females also have antennae that have a pinshaped form.
Where it lives
The main habitat is the territory of the Far East, Apollo Felder was most widespread in China, on Korean peninsulas and in Japan. In Eurasia, representatives of this species can be found in the Khabarovsk Territory, Ussuriysk and in some other parts of Primorye. Amur linden, which spreads near the Amur River and entered in the Red Book, is best suited as a feed plant for these butterflies.
Red Book
In its number, Apollo Felder is very different, and the populations are subject to significant fluctuations. In some years, the species was so common and numerous that they even wanted to remove it from the first category of the Red Book, but the population was once again sharply reduced and now extremely small. The main factor is the growth of a feed plant, which is limited and due to a change in climatic conditions, more and more is reduced to a decrease.
On the territory of the Amur, no measures to protect and preserve the species were used, but several populations of Apollo Felder are under the protection of the reserve «Bastak».
Reproduction
After fertilization, the female begins to migrate closer to reservoirs in search of a feed plant, which is the Lipa Amur Lipa. Having found the necessary valley, in the wet meadows, the female postpers her offspring, which develops throughout the winter. When the wintering passes, the caterpillar hatches out of the egg and proceeds to eat linden in order to soon pus out and become a fullfledged butterfly. This takes a lot of time, but by midJune the caterpillar was becoming a fullfledged doll, and two weeks later – butterfly.
