July 2022: Lesser purple emperor [Apatura ilia] (Schillerfalter): [Ilia was the mother of Romulus & Remus in the Roman mythology] Usually I spot this beautiful butterfly in the middle of the forest trail, but it's not easy to take pictures of it: one little quick movement and it flies away, often up into the trees. Its wings often appear in an unexpected surprising shining blue when it flies around you, but so far I never succeeded in taking a picture with this brilliant blue color that gets visible under a certain angle to the incoming light only. I never discovered this butterfly on a flower. The male lesser purple emperors need certain minerals they find on the ground to become fertile while the females might be seen on flowers as they need carbohydrates they get with nectar. The lesser purple emperors lay their eggs on poplar or willow leaves that often grow along water bodies. As wetlands are destroyed more and more this species suffers from such changes in the landscape.
