Clouded Apollo

Clouded Apollo (Parnassius mnemosyne)

is another species of open canopy middle deciduous forests. It is a striking, large butterfly, whose adults fly from late April to early July only on sunny days. After mating, the females look for places in partial shade where fumewort (Corydalis solida) grows. There they lay eggs in conifer leaf litter and dry leaves. In the following spring, caterpillars hatch from the eggs; they feed on fumewort before it flowers and then pupate. In May and June of the same year, an adult butterfly emerges from the pupa. Clouded Apollos cannot survive in a dense forest, even if carpets of fumewort grow there. They look only for sunny deciduous forests or their edges, which must be sufficiently open. A necessary condition is the connection of open canopy middle forests to flowering meadows, where butterflies mate and look for nectar plants. Clouded Apollo has already become extinct in Bohemia and survives in only a few sites in Moravia. It often lives under power lines, where self-seeding woody plants are regularly cleared.