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| The Five Butterfly Families of Crete |
If
you want to know a little more about the fascinating world of insects
then you can't do better than to start with butterflies. They're
colourful, reasonably easy to tell apart and they don't bite. What is
more there are only six families, at least five of which are present
here on Crete and if you are lucky, as I was recently, you can see
representatives of all five in one day. So here's my guide to the
five butterfly families of Crete.
1
The Whites and Sulphurs (Pieridae family)
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| The Cleopatra Gonepteryx cleopatra |
I
guess that we're all familiar with the Cabbage White (Pieris
brassicae) and
its little sibling the Small White (Pieris
rapae)
but next time take a closer look; you may be observing a Bath White
(Pontia
edusa)
which has a mottled green underwing. On my trek around the hills near
Tylissos to the west of Heraklion I came across two of the sulphurs:
The Clouded Yellow (Colias
croecus)
and this one, the Cleopatra (Gonepteryx
cleopatra) with
its very distinctive wing shape.
2
The Swallowtails (Papilionidae family)
 |
| Scarce Swallowtail, Iphiclides podalirius |
The
Old World Swallowtail (Papilio
machaon) is
a common sight of spring and summer here in Crete with its bold,
bright black and yellow markings and its trailing tails, like those
of the swallow but look out also for this one; the Scarce Swallowtail
(Iphiclides
podalirius)
with the zebra stripes.
3
The Four Footed Butterflies (Nymphalidae family)
 |
| Meadow Brown, Maniola jurtina |
These
are easy to recognise at rest as they appear to only have four legs.
The front two are foreshortened; a bit like those of a Tyrannosaurus
rex
dinosaur. Painted Ladies (Vanessa
cardui) and
Red Admirals (Vanessa
atalanta) are
in this group
along
with
the
vast majority of the brown butterflies that you are likely to come
across (particularly the medium and large ones) such as this Meadow
Brown (Maniola
jurtina).
4
The Gossamer Winged Butterflies (Lycaenidae family)
 |
| Common Blue, Polyommatus icarus |
Another
easy group to recognise on the whole as many of them are small and
blue like this Common Blue (Polyommatus
icarus) but
you have to be quick to photograph them with their wings spread as
they prefer to hold them closed above their backs. This is a good
thing however as often, the only way to tell them apart is from the
markings on their underwings. There are some brown butterflies in
this group too such as the Small Copper (Lycaena
phlaeas)
and the female gossamer wings have a tendancy to be a bit on the
brown side but they are easy to tell apart from the Nymphalidae
because of their diminutive size and rapidly flitting flight
patterns.
5
The Skippers (Hesperiidae family)
 |
| Lulworth Skipper, Thymelicus acteon |
Now
these, I'll admit, you could get confused with the Lycaenidae as
they are small brown jobs. Two things to look out for with these;
firstly they very often hold their hind wings away from their
fore wings like this Lulworth Skipper (Thymelicus
acteon) but
the clincher is their antenae – they have little hooks at the end
which is unique to this group.
There.
Now you know all the butterfly families of Crete. In looking through
the photographs there were a lot of other interesting things that I
saw that day which we can chat about next time (which may or may not
be next week as we're on the hospital trail again for follow-ups).
The
Extra Bit
The
sixth butterfly family is the Metalwings (Riodinidae) which have
metallic markings on their wings. These are predominantly
sub-tropical butterflies but one species is known in Europe, the Duke
of Burgundy Fritillary, Hamearis lucina, but I haven't come
across it in Crete.
Photographic
Bit
Many
of you have asked me
what photographic equipment I use so for details of aperture
settings, shutter speeds etc. my pictures will be on Flickr
within
a few days and that has all the geeky stuff.Pictures
were edited with FastStone Image Viewer and combined with Microsoft
Paint.
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Another great post . Good luck with the follow up visits. X
ReplyDeleteThanks Yvonne
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