On the Status of Apollo Butterfly Populations (Parnassius Apollo, Lepidoptera, Papilionidae) in Eastern Fennoscandia

Short Communication: Biology and distribution of Parnassius apollo (Linnaeus, 1758) a rare species in Mordovia Republic, Russia

“…Of all these factors, we will pay attention to a few that can have a particularly strong impact on Apollo populations. Weather anomalies, especially cold and rainy days in summer, may have affected the development of larvae (Zukowski 1959;Descimon et al 2005;Gorbach et al 2015). This was the exact weather in the spring and summer of 2017, when the warm spring in April was replaced by cold and torrential rains in May and June.…”

“…The Apollo butterfly Parnassius apollo (Linnaeus, 1758) is one of the largest swallowtail butterflies. This species is considered the most vulnerable of Lepidoptera in the northern Palearctic (Gorbach et al 2015;Todisco et al 2010;van Swaay et al 2012). It occurs in most of the large mountainous areas in Europe: Spain, south of France, Switzerland, Austria, south of Germany as far as the Mosel, Italy, the Balkans and Greece, south of Norway, Sweden and Finland at 1000-2400 m above sea level, sometimes at lower altitudes.…”