Forum Entomologi Italiani

Very nice species, local but numerous on the territory in Poland. Caterpilars live between plants on the ground level. Before pupation rarely climb, in general stay where they fed.
In nursery they feed on many small herbal plants, for example Taraxacum officinale, Achillea etc.

The parasitoid is an Ichneumonidae Campopleginae, something like Diadegma but it's impossible to say in photo. In the catalog I have there's no host/parassitoid record for this species of Rebelia.

Filippo

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"Non posso separare il piacere estetico che provo nel vedere una farfalla dal piacere scientifico di sapere che cosa è" (V.Nabokov)

Bella specie!! In Italia Rebelia sapho è segnalata con sicurezza in Valle d'Aosta, Piemonte, Lombardia, Trentino-Alto Adige, Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia.
Specie congeneri presenti con certezza in Italia sono: Rebelia kruegeri Turati, 1914, Rebelia surientella (Bruand, 1858), Rebelia thomanni Rebel, 1937.

Determination of Rebelia is quite difficult. Very important is fly time of imago - early morning (day) or late evening (night) so good thing is to breed larvas to know when imago begins to hatch.

R.sapho, R.kruegeri fly in the morning, but R.sapho April-June while R.kruegeri in June-August
R.surientella, R.thomanni, R.herrichiella fly in the evening.

Filippo, thanks for help. I suppose that Ichneumonidae are not as much specialized to parasitize one particular species of genus Rebelia and probably it "taste" other Rebelia species too. I'm not an expert in this matter so I can be wrong.

Ichneumonidae is a very large family, there are some specialized genus and some not. For genus Rebelia, I have read records for Cryptinae (Phygadeuontini: Gelis/Theroscopus) and Campopleginae (Enytus). Your specimen seems not a Cryptinae, seems more a Campopleginae, but impossible to go further on photo.

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"Non posso separare il piacere estetico che provo nel vedere una farfalla dal piacere scientifico di sapere che cosa è" (V.Nabokov)

Scusate ma io direi che come immagine sarebbe meglio mettere quella della R. sapho e non quella del parassita. Ciao, Zerun.

Yes, I right. I suppose that one particular species of Ichneumonidae, for example may it be called "Parasite_X" doesn't parasitize only one particular species, i.e. "Rebelia_X".
Probably it attacks also different from this genus: "Rebelia_X" as well as "Rebelia_Y" and "Rebelia_Z" etc.

Otherwise, if "Parasite_X" attacks only one species from Rebelia group, it would be used to determination of Rebelia species.

To find this relationship would be very interesting.

Purtroppo l'ultima foto è quella che compare nella miniatura e, in effetti, se non si apre la discussione, sembra fuori luogo.....

Yes - unlucky Now I can not change order of photos

It's easier to use Rebelia to determine the parasitoid !!

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"Non posso separare il piacere estetico che provo nel vedere una farfalla dal piacere scientifico di sapere che cosa è" (V.Nabokov)

Descrizione originale: MILLIÉRE, P. (1864): Iconographie et description de chenilles et lépidoptères inédits 2: 1-506 + pl. 51-62. Paris (F. Savy).

Una vecchia opera basale da Dierl (1968): Die Typusarten der palaearktischen Psychidae-Gattungen (Lep.). - Zeitschr. der Arbeitsgemeinschaft österr. Entomologen, 20:1-17.
PDF; http://www.landesmuseum.at/pdf_frei_rem ... 1-0017.pdf

Yes, these links are known Moreover, about 100 old papers regarding to Psychidae can be downloaded from http://www.landesmuseum.at.

Even with original decriptions (note, that they are poor, and not precise), Rebelia genus is very difficult to recognize, as there are not known good features which can be used to distinguish of each species.