Actinotia radiosa (Esper, 1804)

Host plants:
The caterpillar lives on Hypericum species, probably mostly races of Hypericum perforatum (St Johns wort).

Habitat:
Actinotia radiosa inhabits mesophilic to dry grasslands as rocky slopes, warm meadows in the medium high altitudes of mountain ranges, limestone juniper grasslands, sandy grasslands and other nutrient-poor, sunny locations.

Life cycle:
The pupa hibernates. The moths fly in a single (higher elevation) or two generations from May to August and are diurnal. I found the moth in a probably single generation in mid-July 2010 in Northern Greece near Kastoria at approximately 1600m above sea level together with Melanargia russiae, many Lycaena species (L. alciphron, tityrus, virgaureae) and others on rough pastures between beech forests.
The caterpillars live in the summer and early autumn.

Endangerment: threatened with extinction

Endangerment factors:
Actinotia radiosa is threatened with extinction or already extinct in Central Europe due to the sharp decline of high quality, very extensively managed grasslands and because of still poorly understood other reasons (such as fluctuations in the edge of the area, climate).
In southern Europe the situation is still much better.

Remarks:
Actinotia radiosa is distributed locally in Southern Europe and the southern Central Europe to northern France and Southern Germany, as well as in Western Asia.