Arctia tigrina (de Villers, 1789)

Host plants:
The caterpillars are polyphagous. In Provence, I met a caterpillar feeding on Leontodon sp. in early April 2010.

Habitat:
Arctia tigrina inhabits always stony to rocky habitats, such as screes, stony slopes, rocks, stony river embankments and similar areas from sea level to approximately 1600m above sea level.

Life cycle:
The large caterpillars (French southern Alps, observation in October 2013 near Nice) overwinter and become mature early in March/April. They hide during the day in feeding breaks under stones, where also pupation occurs. The caterpillars are parasitized heavily in some years: 10 observed caterpillars (Provence, April 2010) were all parasitized. In addition, many pupal webs were found under stones, but instead of the expected pupa there were the dead caterpillar and numerous Braconidae cocoons. In April 2013, I found only healthy larvae and cocoons/pupae, but not as common as 2010.

But differing from this, I recorded a quite small larva in a moulting cocoon in 1 metre height in a Cistus bush in late October 2013 in northern Portugal. This larva hibernated only half-grown and differed from Provence larvae also by its incomplete orange-red dorsal line (misses in S-French larvae). Moreover the pupa was black-brown and not red-brown. Against expectation a female of tigrina emerged. Thus these populations seem to have genetic differences and may-be the separation of a subspecies esperi is not so false as considered in Witt & Ronkay 2011 (Noctuidae Europaeae 13). But this needs further research.

The moths fly from late April to July.

Remarks:
Arctia tigrina is distributed in Europe from the northern half of the Iberian Peninsula across Southern France to north west Italy.