Urania sloanus

Urania sloanus (top)

Urania sloanus is an extinct butterfly (moth ) from the family of Urania moth ( Uraniidae ). He was endemic to Jamaica.

Features

Urania sloanus reached a wingspan of 64-76 millimeters. Both the front wing and the rear wing were quite long and narrow. The upper wing surface is deep black. On the fore wings right and left ran six to seven glossy green golden cross bands. The middle two transverse bands were in front two or sometimes three parts. On the black base of the wings irregularly indented copper-red, blue, and gold-green transverse bands were. The drawing of the lower wing surface corresponded to the top. The green cross bands, however, were brighter. The edge of the abdomen was more or less gold green. The tails were black with a few emerald green spots.

Way of life

Although Urania sloanus was diurnal, his flying technique identified him as a real moth. One of the most detailed accounts of the behavior of Urania sloanus in foraging wrote Philip Henry Gosse in 1851. Especially in the first week of April and sometimes in June could observe large flocks of the flowers of avocado. The moths appeared just before sunrise and remained there until 8 or 9 clock in the morning on the flowers. The heat of the day spent at the butterflies resting places, to emerge again after the afternoon rain. The flooding of the wing by the sunlight brought the dazzling colors particularly well.

Extinction

Urania sloanus came earlier in the Blue Mountains are very common. Since 1894 or 1895 this species was, however, not been sighted and is now considered most likely extinct. Although the loss of habitats may have played a role in the decline, but vast tracts of primary forest have been preserved. One of the main food plants of the caterpillars, Omphalea triandra is apparently still widespread in the humid forests of the island. Another food plant could have been Omphalea diandra, formerly the Portland Parish, one of the main distribution areas of Urania sloanus, occurred, but has not been detected in recent years in this region. Due to the loss of forage plants for the caterpillars, the population is believed to have collapsed so drastically that ultimately extinction of the species was inevitable.

System

Urania sloanus was first portrayed in 1725 by Hans Sloane in the second volume of his work Natural History of Jamaica. 1758 Carl Linnaeus mistook this type with Papilio Leilus (now Urania Leilus ). 1779 was carried out by Pieter Cramer the first scientific description under the name Papilio sloanus. This taxon in 1816 by Jacob Hübner was placed in the genus Urania.