Macdunnoughia confusa (Stephens, 1850)

Host plants:
The caterpillar lives polyphagous on herbs, but a certain preference for Asteraceae is recognizable.

Habitat:
Macdunnoughia confusa colonizes all possible habitats in open areas and penetrates sometimes also in large sunny forest edges. It is among the few species that can still be observed in todays intensively farmed agricultural land.

Life cycle:
The caterpillar overwinters. In summer, several successive generations are formed, so that the moths occur from April to October and the caterpillar is found year-round.

Remarks:
The distribution extends across Europe and the Middle Asia to Japan. Macdunnoughia confusa has spread in Europe in recent decades far to the north. In cooler areas (Mountain, Scandinavia) their wintering probably succeed only in very mild winters, so that the stocks are refreshed repeatedly by migration. Macdunnoughia confusa belongs to the famous hiking butterflies. Permanently down to earth she is in Central Europe about to northern Germany in the lower registers.