A butterfly that was believed to have become extinct in Madrid has been seen again

During the celebration of the 1st Testing of the Biodiversity at the Moncloa Campus, José Mañani, an undergraduate student of Biology at the University Complutense de Madrid, took a picture of a diurnal butterfly that had not been observed in the area for 70 years and over 48 year across the urban area of the capital Madrid.

12/06/2012

Butterfly Libythea celtis. Photo: José Mañani During the celebration of the 1st Testing of the Biodiversity at the Moncloa Campus, José Mañani, an undergraduate student of Biology at the University Complutense de Madrid, took a picture of a diurnal butterfly that had not been observed in the area for 70 years and over 48 year across the urban area of the capital Madrid.

The specie, Libythea celtis (Laicharting), is commonly known as the hackberry butterfly because it uses only this tree, Celtis australis Linnaeus, as a food plant.

The butterfly, which is very scarce and highly localized within the Community of Madrid, has very old citations on the website of Virtual Biodiversity until this year that has been registered three times. These new citations raise the possibility that species that were believed to be extinct geographically in some areas can recolonize their former ranges.

The event took place on June 7th and was organized by the Department of Zoology and Physical Anthropology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and the Virtual Biodiversity platform. There were 35 participants who took over 2,500 pictures of plant and animal species at the Ciudad Universitaria de Madrid.

Tag: General Affairs    Source: Francisco José Cabrero

Event date:

12/06/2012