Maniola telmessia

Maniola telmessia, the Turkish meadow brown, is a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae. It is found on several Greek islands in the Aegean Sea and from there through Asia Minor to south-western Iran. In Turkey its distribution was observed in the regions of Aegean, southern Anatolia (Antalya to Kahramanmaraş) and southeastern Anatolia.

Maniola telmessia
Female
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Nymphalidae
Genus: Maniola
Species:
M. telmessia
Binomial name
Maniola telmessia
(Zeller, 1847)[1]
Synonyms
  • Hipparchia telmessia Zeller, 1847

Adults are on wing from April to October in one generation per year. In hot summers, adults diapause. Mating takes place before this diapause, but the eggs are laid after.

The larvae feed on various grasses, especially on Agrostis and Alopecurus species.

Description in Seitz

Z. telmessia (47 b, 48 a) finally is a form from Cyprus and the district of Asia Minor lying opposite and is distinguished by a dififerently shaped scent-patch in the male. Around the tip of this patch the ground-colour is of a lighter brown, so that the patch appears much brighter, more velvety, and more prominent. In the female the disc is not ochre-yellow, but bright foxy brown; in both sexes the underside is also a little different from the nymotypical jurtina. Specimens from Cyprus are said to have a much more rounded forewing , but such variations in shape occur also elsewhere in Europe, tough as rather rare exceptions. The specimens usually sold as telmessia belong doubtless generally to the south-eastern local forms of hispulla, the direction of variation of which has still to be more accurately ascertained. We figure 47 b true Cyprian specimens, 48 a, a specimen from the Danube in which specimen the characteristics of telmessia are much more strongly expressed.[2]

References
  1. "Maniola Schrank, 1801" at Markku Savela's Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms
  2. Seitz. A. in Seitz, A. ed. Band 1: Abt. 1, Die Großschmetterlinge des palaearktischen Faunengebietes, Die palaearktischen Tagfalter, 1909, 379 Seiten, mit 89 kolorierten Tafeln (3470 Figuren) This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.


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