''Maniola telmessia'', the Turkish meadow brown, is a

butterfly Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the Order (biology), order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The ...

of the family

Nymphalidae The Nymphalidae are the largest family of butterflies, with more than 6,000 species distributed throughout most of the world. Belonging to the superfamily Papilionoidea, they are usually medium-sized to large butterflies. Most species have a red ...

. It is found on several

Greek islands Greece has many islands, with estimates ranging from somewhere around 1,200 to 6,000, depending on the minimum size to take into account. The number of inhabited islands is variously cited as between 166 and 227. The largest Greek island by a ...

in the

Aegean Sea The Aegean Sea ; tr, Ege Denizi (Greek language, Greek: Αιγαίο Πέλαγος: "Egéo Pélagos", Turkish language, Turkish: "Ege Denizi" or "Adalar Denizi") is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It ...

and from there through

Asia Minor Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

to south-western

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. It is described as a common species in Israel. In

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

its distribution was observed in the regions of Aegean, southern Anatolia (

Antalya Antalya () is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, fifth-most populous city in Turkey as well as the capital of Antalya Province. Located on Anatolia's southwest coast bordered by the Taurus Mountains, Antalya is the largest Turkish cit ...

Kahramanmaraş Marash (Armenian: Մարաշ), officially Kahramanmaraş () and historically Germanicea (Greek: Γερμανίκεια), is a city in the Mediterranean Region of Turkey and the administrative center of Kahramanmaraş Province. Before 1973, Kahrama ...

) and southeastern Anatolia. Adults are on wing from April to October in one generation per year. In hot summers, adults

diapause In animal dormancy, diapause is the delay in development in response to regular and recurring periods of adverse environmental conditions.Tauber, M.J., Tauber, C.A., Masaki, S. (1986) ''Seasonal Adaptations of Insects''. Oxford University Press It ...

. Mating takes place before this diapause, but the eggs are laid after, in September to October. When resting, adults often hide the "eyes" of the forewings under the camouflage colours of the underside of the hindwings. If disturbed, they lift the front wings abruptly or take off and fly elsewhere. The egg is conical, with a rounded apex, vertical ridges and horizontal grooves. The caterpillars are green, with a lighter green line along their sides; their bodies being covered in short, greenish hairs; they reach up to 30mm in length and around 5mm in width. At the end of the body, caterpillars have a forked tail. They are particularly active at night, hiding during the day amongst the lower parts of their host plants;

larva A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. The ...

e feed on various

grasses Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns and ...

, especially on ''

Agrostis ''Agrostis'' (bent or bentgrass) is a large and very nearly cosmopolitan genus of plants in the grass family, found in nearly all the countries in the world. It has been bred as a GMO creeping bent grass. Species * '' Agrostis aequivalvi'' ...

'' and ''

Alopecurus ''Alopecurus'', or foxtail grass, is a common and widespread genus of plants in the grass family. It is common across temperate and subtropical parts of Eurasia, northern Africa, and the Americas, as well as naturalized in Australia and on vari ...

'' species. In March, the caterpillars begin to pupate on plant parts that are close to the ground. The pupa is initially greenish, changing to greenish yellow and, ultimately, to dark brown, before the adults emerge. The pupal stage takes 21 days.

Description in Seitz

''Z. telmessia'' (47 b, 48 a) finally is a form from Cyprus and the district of Asia Minor lying opposite and is distinguished by a differently shaped scent-patch in the male. Around the tip of this patch the ground-colour is of a lighter brown, so that the patch appears much brighter, more velvety, and more prominent. In the female the disc is not ochre-yellow, but bright foxy brown; in both sexes the underside is also a little different from the nymotypical '' jurtina''. Specimens from Cyprus are said to have a much more rounded forewing, but such variations in shape occur also elsewhere in Europe, tough as rather rare exceptions. The specimens usually sold as ''telmessia'' belong doubtless generally to the south-eastern local forms of '' hispulla'', the direction of variation of which has still to be more accurately ascertained. We figure 47 b true Cyprian specimens, 48 a, a specimen from the Danube in which specimen the characteristics of ''telmessia'' are much more strongly expressed. Seitz. A. in Seitz, A. ed. Band 1: Abt. 1, ''Die Großschmetterlinge des palaearktischen Faunengebietes, Die palaearktischen Tagfalter'', 1909, 379 Seiten, mit 89 kolorierten Tafeln (3470 Figuren)

References

Butterflies described in 1847 Maniola Butterflies of Asia Butterflies of Europe {{Satyrini-stub