Abstract: The local distribution of the superfamily Papilionoidea was investigated in Northern Cyprus. As a result of this study, a total of 45 species belonging to families Papilionidae, Pieridae, Lycaenidae, Satyridae and Nymphalidae was identified; out of which 19 species are new records for the study area. The Nymphalidae had the greatest number of species following by Pieridae, Satyridae, Lycaenidae and Papilionidae. The most abundant species in the study area were Pieris brassicae (L.) (19% of the catches), Polyommatus icarus (Rott.) (11%), Euchloe ausonia (Hbn.) (5%) and Pararge aegeria (L.) (5%).
INTRODUCTION
Cyprus (35°00'N, 33°00'E) has an area of 9251 km2 in Northeastern Mediterranean Sea. It is situated at the junction of Europe, Asia and Africa which makes its fauna and flora an interesting blend of familiar European and less known Asian and African species (Parker, 1983; Özden, 2003).
The superfamily Papilionoidea contains all the butterflies except for the skippers, which are classified in superfamily Hesperioidea (Anonymous, 2006). Butterflies are considered as being the best group of insects for examining the patterns and the distribution of terrestrial biotic diversity (Robbins and Opler, 1997; Boriani et al., 2005).
The Papilionoidea are medium to large, occasionally small lepidopterans. They are among the most specialized Lepidoptera in terms of behavior and ecology. Perhaps more than any other insects, butterflies display aposematic or warning coloration and engage in mimicry relationships (Daly et al., 1998).
The superfamily Papilionoidea consists of five families that include Nymphalidae, Lycaenidae, Papilionidae, Pieridae and Satyridae. The largest families of the Papilionoidea are Lycaenidae and Nymphalidae (Daly et al., 1998).
Studies on the Lepidopteran species of Cyprus have been conducted by several researchers, such as Turner (1920), Rebel (1939), Hackman (1954), Georghiou (1977), John (2000), Makris (2002) and Özden (2003). The purpose of this study was to contribute to the diversity and abundance of Papilionoidea fauna throughout Northern Cyprus.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
This study was carried out in the capital city Lefkoşa and 4 major towns of Northern Cyprus (Gazimagosa, Girne, Güzelyurt, İskele) between 2000 and 2004 (Fig. 1). Sweepnets and hand-picking were used to collect specimens resting or feeding on plants, flying around and nectaring on flowers. The captured specimens were killed in killing jars with ethyl acetate and separately kept in rectangular envelops. The captured specimens inside envelops were then brought back to the laboratory for preparation and identification. Some specimens, collected in the larval stage, were reared to adults on their host plants in the laboratory conditions.
Identifications were conducted by comparison of collected specimens with specimens in the Collection Room of the Department of Forest Entomology and Protection, Faculty of Forestry, Istanbul University, Turkey. Some references, notably Spuler (1910) and Hesselbarth et al. (1995) were used as well. The identified specimens were deposited in the collection room of the department mentioned above.
| Fig. 1: | Collection sites in Northern Cyprus |
| Table 1: | List of The Papilionoidea specimens collected from Northern Cyprus in the period of 2002-2004 |
| Abbreviations: D: District, V: Village, R: Region, T: Town, C: Capital city | |
RESULTS
A total of 45 species, belonging to five families, were recorded in the study area (Table 1). The list of the superfamily Papilionoidea of Northern Cyprus given below is based mainly on the generic classification taken from Forster and Wohlfahrt (1955), Schwenke (1978), Hesselbarth et al. (1995) and Koçak and Seven (2001). Species under families are arranged in alphabetical order.
The most represented families were Nymphalidae (14 species) and Pieridae (10 species) following by Satyridae (9 species), Lycaenidae (8 species) and Papilionidae (4 species) (Fig. 2).
Nineteen Papilionoidea species captured are new records for Cyprus Island. The new records are Iphiclides podalirius, Zerynthia polyxena, Leptidea sinapis, Pieris napi, Callophrys rubi, Satyrium ilicis, Coenonympha arcania, Coenonympha pamphilus, Maniola jurtina, Melanargia galathea, Pseudochazara lydia, Argynnis paphia, Brenthis daphne, Inachis io, Issoria lathonia, Melitaea didyma, Melitaea trivia, Polygonia c-album and Speyeria aglaja.
| Fig. 2: | Comparison of numbers of catches and species of the Papilionoidea collected in Northern Cyprus |
DISCUSSION
Forty-nine butterfly species, excluding the family Hesperiidae, are known to distribute throughout Cyprus (Makris, 2002). In this study, 19 species were captured as new records for Cyprus.
As the sweepnet collections did not systematically sample the Papilionoidea fauna, it is not possible to make direct comparison of relative abundance by species. Some species of the Papilionoidea fauna were however noticeably abundant in the study area, such as Pieris brassicae (L.) (19% of the catches), Polyommatus icarus (Rott.) (11%), Euchloe ausonia (Hbn.) (5%) and Pararge aegeria (L.) (5%). It has been observed that Polyommatus icarus (rott.) was available in Italy constitution 23% of the catches conducted by Boriani et al. (2005).
The aim of this study was to investigate the Papilionoidea community of Northern Cyprus. Although 45 specimens were recorded in the study area, probably a large portion of the fauna remains unsampled. For this reason, further investigations are needed to make new contributions to the knowledge of the superfamily Papilionoidea.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We wish to thank Dr. Torul Mol, Dr. Erdal Selmi and Dr. Tamer Öymen for their invaluable help.