Photo #4450: Argynnis paphia

Larva

Base gallery.

Photo, and identified by: Andrey Sazykin. Image redone at the website. Tentative identification

Date and time, location shooting/catching: 2010-05-18 16:40:02, Perm' region, Perm' city suburbs, nearby Andronovo village

Photographer's comment: In somewhere (area about ~10m²) there were caterpillars of different sizes, small ones about ~2cm, middle about 3cm, reddish-grey and big ones (up to 4,5cm), red and slightly red. All had a dashed white stripe on their backs. All fed only on wonder violets (Viola mirabilis), in daytime, there were none to meet after the sunset. They all behaved similarly: a caterpillar rapidly climbed up a leaf, fed unceasingly for 3-5 minutes, (eating up eventually 1,5-2cm2 of a leaf), after that got down to the root and creeped the plant away 5-20cm going to the ground litter where it rolled itself into a half-ring and stayed movelessly for 15-20 minutes. Then the whole process reoccurred.