Apatura metis Freyer, 1829

Franeta, Filip, 2018, Checklist of the butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea) of Montenegro, Zootaxa 4392 (1), pp. 128-148 : 141

Apatura metis Freyer, 1829

—This species was only mentioned by Jakšić (1988) and Švara et al. (2015) from Skadar Lake. It is widespread along much of the northern side of the lake where its host plant Salix alba L.grows in abundance (Franeta pers. obs.). Compared to its European distribution ( Masui et al. 2011), the Skadar Lake population is very isolated, almost 300km from the nearest Greek populations and about the same distance from the closest Serbian colonies ( Pamperis 2009; Miljević & Popović 2014), and for some time there was doubt regarding its occurrence in this region. The species has recently been observed on the Albanian shores of the Skadar Lake (Micevski et al. 2015). The presence of A. metis in Montenegro might be overlooked by its unusual phenology, compared to other populations from the rest of its European range ( Masui et al. 2011). It usually starts to fly at the end of June and continues until the second half of July, with a peak flight period in the first week of July (Franeta pers. obs.). The number of generations at the Skadar Lake colony is yet to be determined and it is quite possible that another (2nd) generation might occur later in the season.