Colias hecla ssp. sulitelma

[wolf]

I decided to take a trip up north to Northern Norway this year. I spent 2 weeks up there. I had already made up my mind that i wanted to breed some of the northern species, so i decided to go for Colias hecla ssp. sulitelma, as i considered them maybe one of the easier to breed.
I caught a female the 5. July and she easily laid lots of eggs in captivity on both fresh and dead hostplant. The eggs used about 1 week to hatch. Information online says that this sp hibernates atleast once as larva, sometimes two times. It all depends on the weather conditions up north. The larva feeds on Astragalus alpinus. In my breeding 7 larva went all the way through to adults this year. The rest of the larva is now hibernating as L2 and L3. The adult butterfly usually flies in July, but one source online claims that they can be seen as late as September, which probably implies that they are able to have two generations the same season in the wild. Demonstrated by my breeding this might be the case. Anyway.
The larval stage lasted about 3,5 weeks. I lost track alittle, but im pretty sure they molted only 3 times. They were prepupa for only 2 days, and the pupal stage lasted about a week before hatching.
To my surprise one female hatched as an aberrant, most likely due to temprature changes during the pupal stage. I kept all the pupa in the same room and place, so this was completely unintentional, but a nice surprise anyway!

A not so nice surprise was that out of the 7 pupa, only 2 managed to hatch successfully! 2 adults failed to pump up their wings properly, 2 got stuck inside the pupal shell and one pupa dried out and died. I want to ask someone with more experience. Could this be due to climate differences? Could it be that the larva didn't get enough moisture/water during the larval stage and subsequently they didn't have enough fluids as adults to pump up their wings? Or was it just bad luck?
Im curious to hear your opinions. I dont want the same to happen next year to the larva i have hibernating!

Enjoy the pictures, and as always u can visit my website Norlep.com for highres pics aswell as a few more pictures.

Eggs


L1


L2


L3



L4



Prepupa


Pupa



Adult

[bobw]

Well done!  I've tried to rear several arctic Colias, including hecla hecla from Alaska but failed miserably with all of them, losing them as 2nd or 3rd instar larvae, I put that down to changes in air pressure or daylength between the arctic and southern England; I've had the same problems with high altitude species from Central Asia, presumably for the same reasons.  I'm surprised you got some through the same year as I thought they generally had a two-year life cycle with a few going through in one year.  I guess it's possible that your hatching problems could be due to the same thing - differences in air pressure, temperature and/or daylength.  How far north are you compared to where they fly in the arctic?  I have heard, although I've no personal experience, that these arctic species have been reared further south by reversing day and night, i.e. keeping the larvae dark in a fridge during the day and putting them under constant light at night, this means the mean day and night temperatures are lowered and the daylength can be controlled.

Do you have a photo of the upperside of the aberrant female?

[wolf]

Hi Bob
Thanks for your fast input!
After using google maps to measure distance in air distance im about 1200km further south than where i caught the female, but im "only" about 800km further south from the southernmost know locality in Norway. The attached map shows approximately where i live(red dot), where i caught the female(black dot) and the southernmost border for the sp's occurence(blue line).


This is the upperside of the female that i took while preparing her, she's still on the board drying.

[bobw]

I guess that's far enough for conditions to be very different, if not it would be found down near you.

That female's a beauty!

[wolf]

Off the board. To me the ventral is more "spectacular" than the dorsal 

[wollastoni]

What a beauty ! Congrats for your rearing success and for this unique ab !
I am impressed !

[exoticimports]

Have you ever followed the Jan Baalsrud trail from Lyngen Fjord? That’s right up where you got the female.

Chuck

[wolf]

Sept 15, 2021 0:12:47 GMT exoticimports said:

Have you ever followed the Jan Baalsrud trail from Lyngen Fjord? That’s right up where you got the female.

Chuck

Hi Chuck
No i have not specifically followed "in his footsteps". I have however driven along Lyngenfjorden several times looking over to Lyngsalpan. This year i also took a ferry from Breivikeidet over to Svensby, drove across Lyngen, and then again ferry from Lyngseidet over to Olderdalen. Lyngsalpan is a very popular area for free skiers. Alot of high and very steep mountaintops.

Under is a picture from the other side of Lyngenfjorden with Lyngsalpan in the background.

[exoticimports]

Thanks Wolf for the photo, it looks beautiful up there. Sorry to derail your fine thread.

Chuck