The European Peacock - "Aglais Io"

Hello lovely Hiveans !

Today I want to publish another Insect and a little description on it into the Insects Of The World Community that is actually dedicated to all posts about insects and their charackterisation and interesting descibrions and facts ^^ .. In this post I choose to present to you the European Peacock (Aglais Io), a beautiful local butterfly with a nice tortoiseshell pattern that cought my eyes directly.

Scientific Classification of Aglais Io:

The Agalis Io belongs to the order of Lepioptera (All Butterflies and Moths), and within this order to the Family of Nymphalidae. Within this largest family of butterflies it is assigned to the genus of the Aglais, which contains all the beautiful species with a tortoiseshell pattern on it [1]. As you saw on the pictures is has tese beautiful tortoiseshell pattern in his eyespots ^^

• Kingdom: Animalia
• Phylum: Arthropoda
• Class: Insecta
• Order: Lepidoptera - "Butterflies and Moths"
• Family: Nymphalidae - "Largest Family of Butterflies"
• Genus: Aglais - "Tortoiseshell Patterns"
• Species: Aglais io
  
  
  

Distribution of the Butterfly:

The Aglais Io is native to the whole northern parts of Europe and Asia. Thus, the species that I present here is a local one. This species can be even found up to an altitude of 2500 m, so out Hiveans from the alp region is Central Europe or the Skandinavian Moutain ranges are able to find them too on their mountain hikes. Their favorite biotopes are widely open forests, as well as open parks and gardens [2].

_{The Aglais Io favors open forests, as well as open parks and gardens.}

• Places of spread: - Northern parts of Europe and Asia, up to an altitude of 2500 m
  
  
  

Common Appearance:

The Aglais Io has a usual wingspan between 50 and 55 millimeters [1]. This reported size fits really nice to the size of the specimen's wings that I found and photographed. Thereby, the base colour of the wings features an intense rusty red tone, combined with some black and creamy white accent colors. I really like the eyespots on this species a lot. The white to yellowish basis colour of the spots stands in a nice contrast with the rest of the wings. But this is not all. The eyespots itself feature another admirable contrast, as in the middle of the dots there are some reddish and black pupils with a nice bluish tortoiseshell touch. Especially this tortoiseshell pattern makes the eyesots even more attractive, and they also come very close to the imitation of real eyes ^^ The outer edge of both pairs of wings is held in a grayish brown colour. A similar, but more brownish colour tone is seen for the whole body, including the head, thorax and abdomen of the species.

_{The wings features an intense rusty red tone, combined with black and creamy white accent colors.}

_{The eyespots have a white to yellowish basis colour and reddish and black pupils with a nice bluish tortoiseshell touch.}

_{The outer edge of the wings is grayish brown. The whole body is held in a similar, but more brownish colour tone.}

• Size: - Wingspan of 50 to 55 mm
• Head, Thorax & Abdomen: - Brownish
• Wings: - Rusty red base colour with distinctive black, blue and yellow eyespot
  
  
  

Date and Location of the Discovery

The Aglais Io Butterfly was found on 10th October 2021 in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

Thank You Very Much !

Thank you very much for taking the time to read about my finding ^^ .. I also like to thank the Insects Of The World Community moderators @lourdeshd6 and @nicanor-mosquera for their excellent work and effort in curation all the time. You are a big pillar in making this community a wonderful one for all the Insect-Lovers out there ;)

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Previous Insects

• The West Virginia White Butterfly - "Pieris Virginiensis"
• The Fall Webworm - "Hyphantria Cunea"

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_{All pictures were taken by myself, ©@adalger, with a Xiaomi Redmi Mobile Phone. For information gathering I mainly used some articles about the Aglais Io on Wikipedia [1][2].}

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Best wishes,
Adalger