On April 30, four postage stamps dedicated to butterflies were put into postal circulation in the Fauna of Russia series

Rich and diverse is the fauna of Primorye and the Far East. Of special beauty are butterflies of which there are more than 2,000 species there.

Many of them are endemics. One of them is Luehdorfia puziloi, a brightly colored soft yellow butterfly with black bands of the Papilionidae family. Its wingspan does not exceed 6 cm. Pucillo ludorfia appears in forests very early, but not for long. Warm days from late April to mid-May are its entire life cycle. Only one plant is a food plant for it: Siebold's asarum. The caterpillars nourish intensively all through the summer, pupate by autumn and overwinter to close the cycle next year.

June is the beginning of the flight of Mimathyma schrenckii, named in honor of the 19th century ethnographer L. Schrenck who discovered it. It inhabits the Lower Amur, Primorsky and Middle Amur Regions, as well as Korea. Forage plants are hornbeam and elm. The wingspan can reach up to 9 cm. Usually these butterflies live high in tree crowns and come down to water bodies only on hot days.

Sericinus montela is a butterfly of the Papilionidae family. In Russia, it is represented by subspecies amurensis, which inhabits the south of Primorsky Krai. The butterfly is found mainly in riverside biotopes, on steep low slopes of river terraces in areas with herbaceous twisted birthwort, which is a food plant for Sericinus montela. The wingspan reaches 64-70 mm.

Epicopeia mencia belongs to the family Epicopeiidae; it is common in the south of Primorye and Khabarovsk Territory. It inhabits valley-growing broad-leaved liana forests. Eggs are laid in groups of several dozen. Caterpillars live in communities, pupate in the upper layer of soil in a cocoon. They overwinter in the pupal stage.

The postage stamps provide images of butterflies Luehdorfia puziloi, Mimathyma schrenckii, Sericinus montela and Epicopeia mencia.

In addition to the issue of the postage stamps, JSC Marka produced First Day Covers and special cancels for Moscow, St. Petersburg, Birobidzhan, Vladivostok, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Penza, Khabarovsk and Chelyabinsk, as well as maxi-cards and an illustrated cover with a block of four, a label and a First Day Cover with a cancel for Moscow inside.


Design Artist: V. Beltyukov.
Face value: 24 rubles each.
Stamp size: 37×37 mm, sheet size: 94×99 mm.
Emission form: a sheet with formatted margins with 4 (2×2) stamps.
Quantity: 42 thousand blocks of four.

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