Italian diurnal butterflies: an excellent introduction to breeding

Breeding butterflies is a great way to learn more about how important is nature surrounding us. We always welcome any newcomer in the breeding world with our suggestions: here we will discuss about several italian diurnal butterflies and how to breed them.

Melitaea didyma

Any kid that grew up in Northern Italy has always been fascinated by the large amount of butterflies that would fly up anywhere in the country. While some of us turned this fascination into a full time passion, some did not.

Anyway, everybody knows about Melitaea didyma, because its appearance could not be indifferent. Its colors and its shape is distinctive from way other butterflies that one would have found.

It could be defined as a medium sized butterfly with a wingspan that stands between three to five centimeters. Its bright brown and orange color on the upper part of its wings with dark brown markings arranged in variable rows makes it fascinating. It’s well known in fact that most of the times young lepidoptera breeders would hunt for the ones with the rares appearance of rows.

Sometimes in females the palette of orange sides to a more grey color. Usually the underside of the wings gets from dark yellow to orange. This butterfly is connected with the direct arise of temperatures, and it meant good season for all the kids: that’s because it flies from March to October.

In case you are interested, you can find our Melitaea didyma pupae available for sell in our shop: give them a try!

Melitaea nevadensis

Melitaea nevadensis is a specie that is not particularly tied to Northern Italy, being available in other areas of Southern Europe, but given its widespread diffusion it became an italian diurnal butterflies staple.

While its colours are well known and distinctive, the great plus in breeding this specie is the fact that its caterpillars feed on several different plants. In fact, they can be fed with Plantago, Antirrhinum or more generally known as dragon flowers or snapdragons, Veronica or gypsyweed and much more.

While you get more interested in italian diurnal butterflies, we can suggest you to take a look at our shop for more species!

Maniola jurtina

Even if Maniola jurtina is not just a mere italian diurnal butterflies staple, we wanted to include it anyway in our collection.

This species, also known as Meadow brown, is regarded as one of the most widespread species in the world, being a staple in the Palearctic region. Regarding the European context, it can be found anywhere.

This specie is also well known for the marked difference between sexes. In fact, the upperside of the male is uniformly light brown. It has a black ocellus centered white at the apex of the forewing. On the other hand the female has a reddish patch more or less extended around this ocellus.

The underside tends to be ochre and bordered dark beige with the same ocelli at the apex in the male, while the hindwing is greyish to brown with a more or less orange band in the female.

The difference in range of mobility of this species is well known and it’s also one of the main reason why this is so widespread. While males tend to wander a lot and move themselves in great areas, females tend to stay closer to the areas where they were bred.

Italian diurnal butterflies: how to breed them

Starting from today we offer eggs from different Italian diurnal butterflies, obtained from adults collected during a field trip by our partner Alessandro (north Italy, MB province). Only freshly laid eggs will be sent out, to minimize risk of hatching during travel. They will be shipped with priority postage only. This add with full details and prices is only available for clients subscribed to our mailing-list. Use the Contact Us form to let us now that you wish to subscribe TTB mailing-list.