Apollo butterfly

The Apollo butterfly is a species of butterfly known by the scientific name Parnassius apollo. It is perhaps best known for it beautiful coloration, with big black spots on the tops of its wings and red spots on the bottom. These amazing red-eye spots can vary in size and shape depending on the location of the Apollo butterfly. These red spots often fade in the sun causing them to appear more of an orange.

Body Design
The Apollo butterfly is an amazing butterfly of the mountainous regions. Its hairiness, wing shape, body size and markings make it look like it was from the prehistoric era compared to today's butterflies. The entire thorax combined with the abdomen is usually hairy. Surprisingly, it glides over mountain tops effortlessly. The markings on the Apollo butterfly vary, with many different forms; especially the red spots and the veins underneath are yellow. The caterpillars have a somewhat velvet-like texture to them. They also have orange spots on each side of them. (Their wings tend to stretch across anywhere from seven to eight centimeters.)

The wings look waxy when they wear them, they are usually white but some actually look darker. Even if it loses its scales, it doesn't seem to affect its flight at all. The female Apollo butterfly is usually larger sometimes with a grayish color all over it. The female also has larger red spots when compared to the male; more red spots are seen on the female closer to the anal area. These amazing red-spots can vary in size and location depending on the location. Sometimes when the sun hits the red-spots, they appear to be somewhat of an orange color. The female species all have a mechanism at the end of the abdomen that prevents mating when they have already done so. The mechanism is called a sphragis. It looks like it is a waxy structure that is applied to males after sexual intercourse which then hardens. 

Life Cycle
The Apollo butterfly has a one-year life cycle which may be one reason it is so rare. The one-year life cycle doesn't give the butterfly enough time to spread. The flight period of the Apollo butterfly starts in the second week of July and lasts for about one month. The larvae of the Apollo butterfly feed on the Corydalis adiantifolia. The plant barely stick out above the ground when its time for the female to lay her eggs. So instead of trying to find the plants by looking with its eyes, the Apollo butterfly detects its way to the plant by smelling out the underground tubers. Once the female gets to the plants, she lays her eggs beside them. When the larvae emerge in the spring time they eat the leaves of the plant. 

The Apollo butterfly usually mates between the months of June and July. Since these caterpillars have an exoskeleton, they have to molt their skin multiple times, because it doesn't grow. While maturing, these caterpillars molt their skin for a total of five times. After they have finished their molting process they did a hole in the ground. After two months in the ground, the cocoon opens and a butterfly comes out of it. It takes about three months for the Apollo to become what we understand today as a butterfly. That is why, when it is is in its caterpillar phase, it needs to eat a lot to sustain energy and store energy for when it goes into its cocoon. Usually the plants that the caterpillar fins are not very nutritious so it eats a lot of semi-nutritious food; not stopping until they reach their cocoon phase. When they mature they usually feed off of nectar, which they suck out of their mouth with their apparatus. 

Ecology
The Apollo butterfly appears on steep mountainous areas with slopes that are sunny with scattered vegetation. In Europe, there are many different type of sub-species, and forms because of the separated nature of dispersing area; because of that, big isolation of populations. The populations are separated by mountains and develop individually from one another so that their differences show. Except, their ecology are very alike. The Apollo butterflies like to visit places with flowers and thistles. The female Apollo butterfly lays it's singularly or or in a small pack near the foodplant.

The eggs mature but the caterpillar hibernates inside of it's cocoon or as a freshly hatched larva in it's close area. When it becomes spring the larva starts eating the buds on the foodplant. The caterpillars of later instars eat the leaves also. When it's time for the larva to become a pupa, the caterpillar tries to find a safe place in between the stone, where they then spin themselves cocoon where they then turn into a pupa. The Apollo butterfly only has one generation a year. 

Conservation
In many countries, there are laws that protect the Apollo butterfly. Also in the Appendix II on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), it forbids trading of these species. However, these laws only protect the individuals, instead of their habitat, and so they do little to lessen the dangers that these populations face less. The good thing is that there are a lot of different organizations that are here to help this species. For example there is a conservation group in Pieniny National Park that saved a subspecies of the Apollo butterfly.

In south-west Germany there is a conservationist group that is working with shepherds to make sure that the Apollo butterfly gets good conditions, because they share their grassland with the shepherds sheep. (One thing that the conservation group did was ask the shepherds to move the sheeps' grazing period to avoid the Apollo butterfly larvae stage, which at that time, the butterfly is vulnerable to being trampled by the sheep.) Because of these amazing efforts people are doing, the Apollo butterfly may be able to live a beautiful life.