www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

The authors Hana Šefrová and Zdeněk Laštůvka from the Mendel's University, Brno refer about the partial 3rd breed of the Scarce Swallowtail in the western Slovakia and SE Moravia. Their article "Swalowtails surprised" has come in the Czech environmentalist journal Veronica in its newest No. 1/2010 and refers about the find of the Scarce Swalowtail imagos at the begining of October 2009.

Transient temperature rise at the ending of the September and the begining of the October 2009 brought about some imagos hatching. But the individuals of this breed were lost because they can't accomplish the reproduction: Scarce Swalowtail hibernates as the nymph and the temperature rise was too short for accomplish the whole reproduction cycle to this stage. Both the imagos and eventually caterpillars perish during the subsequent cooling.

Very interesting - thanks for sharing!

Cheers,

- Pete

Hi Traplican,

So far as I can see, the online version you linked to only has a brief summary of the story - I presume you have to subscribe for the whole thing!! Anyway, I have some questions the original might have answered.

Do they know if any eggs were laid by the autumn generation? If eggs were laid and were capable of surviving the winter all would be well - they could hatch at the same time as the eggs laid by next spring's adults. In Switzerland the adults are already laying by mid-April. If the eggs can't survive the winter this is a sad story indeed! But also a surprising story, because the pupae that hatched in October will not have had the stimulus of winter that is normally required before they will emerge.

Very interesting.

Guy

Hi Guy,

I have the whole article and they allude to a few of specimens only. Some of them have been observed in arroundings of Veľké Leváre, Slovakia, on October 10th. At that time they still consider it to be a local anomaly but then on October 16th they found a newly perished specimen near Radějov in the White Carpathians - evidently due to the sudden colding and whether worsening. The occurence of the third breed in the Central Europe is very surpising and wasn't occured before.
The note that Papilio machaon is something else and has usually three breeds/year in CE because its advancement is more faster.

In the acticle they write word for word: "Jsou totiž schopni přezimovat pouze ve stadiu kukly", thats means "Because they are able hibernate only in the stage of puppa", so it seems that the don´t know that I. podalirius is able to survive winter in the stage of ovum, too.

I can give you the contact to them:
http://www.sefrova.com/contact.php
http://is.mendelu.cz/lide/clovek.pl?id=3227;lang=en