This is the Zerynthia cassandra, observed during an excursion on urban biodiversity organized by the University of Florence.
Editorial board
May 22, 2024
FLORENCE – A butterfly thought to have disappeared for decades continues to fly in the Florentine meadows. The discovery occurred in Mugnone River Parkbetween the capital and Fiesole, during a research activity on biodiversity coordinated by the University of Florence.
The excursion involved approximately 70 volunteers including students of the Natural Sciences degree course and Baker Hughes employees, with which the University of Florence has a collaboration agreement. It was a company employee who identified a specimen of Zerynthia cassandraa beautiful butterfly protected at European level and no longer reported for decades in the city and surrounding areas.
Bioblitzthis is the name given to the excursion, is one of the four initiatives envisaged by the project “URBeauty – Citizen science actions and widespread aesthetic experience for the conservation of urban and peri-urban biodiversity”.
“URBeauty intends to identify which elements of biodiversity have been lost in the urban and peri-urban area of Florence – explains the entomologist Leonardo Daiutoresearcher in Zoology and project manager – Referring to the collections preserved in the La Specola Natural History Museum, we make a comparison between the butterflies present in Florence 100 years ago with those we find in our citizen science activities, involving the citizens themselves ‘in the field’ in the identification of the specimens”.
Researchers and volunteers were very surprised by the presence of the Zerynthia cassandradespite the major changes brought about by city urbanization and interventions on river banks.
According to the researcher, the presence of this insect could mean a less deterioration of the ecosystem in the last century than initially hypothesized. Now it will be possible to study the specificities of the habitat in which this moth lives and take action to protect it.
The project URBeauty also analyze the impact of the aesthetic factor on conservation interventions for certain species, in particular butterflies. Around half of Europe’s nearly 500 butterfly species are in decline and some are at risk of extinction. It turned out though to equal risk not all butterflies enjoy the same protections. In the various red lists at an Italian and European level, the larger, more colorful and flashier ones appear more frequently. In a word, the most beautiful. We tend to invest more in these.
“Each moth plays an important role in maintaining biodiversity – concludes Daiuto – and it would be it is a mistake to favor a species just because it is aesthetically more beautiful. Furthermore, we have noticed how ‘discriminations’ exist in interventions to safeguard species at risk: unlike what happens for many vertebrates, especially mammals, adequate insect protection projects have not yet been prepared.”.
