Heath sulphur facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Heath sulphur |
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The heath sulphur (scientific name: Colias chippewa) is a beautiful butterfly that belongs to the Pieridae family. You can find this butterfly in the northern parts of North America and also in northeastern Asia. Its home stretches from Alaska across northern Canada, including all the territories, and goes as far east as Labrador. It also lives in the Russian Far East.
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What Does the Heath Sulphur Look Like?
The heath sulphur butterfly is a medium-sized butterfly. Its wingspan, which is the distance from one wingtip to the other, is usually between 32 and 45 millimeters. That's about the size of a small paperclip to a little bigger than a postage stamp!
Where Does the Heath Sulphur Live?
These butterflies love to live in cool, wet places. Their favorite homes are bogs and tundras. Bogs are wetlands with lots of moss and peat, while tundras are cold, treeless plains found in Arctic regions. These habitats provide the right conditions for the plants they need to survive.
Life Cycle of the Heath Sulphur
You can usually spot the adult heath sulphur butterflies flying around from the middle of June until early August. This is their main flight period when they are active.
The young butterflies, called larvae (or caterpillars), have a special diet. They mostly munch on plants from the Vaccinium family. Their favorite foods are Vaccinium uliginosum (also known as bog blueberry or northern bilberry) and Vaccinium caespitosum (dwarf bilberry). These plants are common in the bog and tundra environments where the butterflies live.
Heath Sulphur Family Tree
Scientists sometimes group animals into different categories to understand how they are related. The heath sulphur, Colias chippewa, is a distinct species. However, some scientists have debated if it might be a type of Colias palaeno, another butterfly species.
But other researchers, like Guppy and Shepard, believe C. chippewa is its own separate species. They found that in places like the Magadan region of Siberia, C. chippewa and C. palaeno live in the same general area but prefer different specific spots. C. chippewa likes stream-edges in dry tundra, while C. palaeno prefers forested swamps at lower elevations. This shows they are different enough to be considered separate species.
Heath Sulphur Subspecies
Within the Colias chippewa species, there are a few different types called subspecies. Subspecies are groups of animals within a species that have small differences, often because they live in different areas. Here are some of the known subspecies:
- C. c. baffinensis – This subspecies is found on Baffin Island in Canada.
- C. c. chippewa – This is the main or "nominate" subspecies.
- C. c. gomojunovae – You can find this subspecies in the Russian Far East, specifically in places like Chukotka and Magadan.
