Rare butterfly was discovered near Barnaul

The Apollo is a butterfly of the Papilionidae family. It was named after Apollo, god of art. It is one of the rarest insects in Europe. It has become completely extinct in some countries. The reason for that is their sedentariness (or stenotopy); they are bound to the habitat of their fodder plants. Due to fragmentation of population, the Apollo has a number of different subspecies. The Apollo comfortably lives in the mountains of Scandinavia, Ural, Central Asia, Kazakhstan and South Siberia, while steppe subspecies have almost completely disappeared (for example, in Ukraine, Crimea, European part of Russia, and majority of countries in Central Europe).

“Meinhardi is a unique subspecies of the Apollo butterfly, which was first described by famous Soviet entomologist Leo Sheljuzhko in 1924. It inhabits steppes of Altai Krai. It is extremely rare in the south of the West Siberian Plain and occurs in several points of Tyumen Oblast, Novosibirsk Oblast, Omsk Oblast, Altai Krai, and Northern Kazakhstan. It was discovered on the territory of steppe Altai (namely in the vicinity of Barnaul and several villages of Kamensky District) by entomologist V.V. Vnukovskiy in 1920s. Later it was seen by Barnaul entomologist Yu. Perunov in Pankrushikhinsky District in 1980s. Further explorations were not crowned with success: any of such negative factors as pesticide abuse, plowing up, overgrazing can lead to extinction of population. This is what most probably happened in the majority of places at plains of Altai Krai that were exposed to massive anthropogenic load in Soviet times,” Doctor of Biology Roman V. Yakovlev said. “And now, population of unique Apollo subspecies has recently been discovered in Topchikhinsky District by amateur entomologist from Barnaul Igor Volgin, who continuously cooperates with biologists of Altai State University. He took photos of several samples. The discovery can be called sensational. People living in Topchikhinsky District can be proud that such a unique and rare butterfly inhabits their territory. Next year my colleague and I are going to study the Apollo, its population, and condition. We will elaborate and propose preservation measures.”