Meleager's Blue, New Species for Lithuania. |
Written by Jos | |
Whilst searching for Chalkhill Blues in southern Lithuania on 30 July, I discovered a female Meleager's Blue (Meleageria daphnis) taking nectar from Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) flowers. This constitutes for the first record of the species in Lithuania and the Baltic States. Remarkably, I found a second individual a week later at a distance of 550 metres from the first, this second being a male.
The site, located less than a hundred metres from the Belarus border south-west of Druskininkai, was an area of mixed meadows and pine forest, largely on sandy soils. Active and mobile, the butterfly was watched for about fifteen minutes as it moved rapidly from flower clump to flower clump, the habitat being an abandoned meadow rich in flowers and over growing with raspberries, assorted mixed shrubs, bushes and occasional pines in places.
With a European distribution range stretching from southern Europe through to Ukraine and the Balkans, the closest known populations of Meleager's Blue are in southern and eastern Poland, northern Ukraine and parts of Belarus. As a non-migratory species, its occurrence in Lithuania is quite remarkable, opening the possibility that unknown populations exist between this locality and the known range in Belarus or Poland.
Incredibly I found a second individual on 6 August - a male about 550 metres from the female location (which I failed to locate again). A far less distinctive butterfly than the female, the rear scalloping is very much reduced and can almost be overlooked in the field. Likewise, the marking on the underwings are less distinctive, the basic pattern being a shadow of that of the female.
Despite never having been recorded in Lithuania, the presence of two individuals in close proximity strengthens the possibility that a small population of this non-migrant does actually exist in the immediate area. This can also be considered likely as the food plants of the caterpillar, Crown Vetch (Coronilla varia) and Wild Thyme (Thymus serpyllum), do occur in southern Lithuania, thus potential certainly exists that further records may occur, though the complicated life cycle of the species also requires the presence of ant species (genera Lasius, Formica or Tapinoma) to tend the larvae.
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 26 March 2017 ) |
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