Appearance
The wings have a black ground color with variable white pattern elements. A wider inner cross and a narrow basal cross line are typical. The dark midfield is traversed by white patches, which may be continuous. The outer cross line forms a wide white band, which usually has a row of black dots. In the black area of the margin is a wavy line broken into white stains, which forms an arrow- or spearhead-shaped element. The fringes are black and white patched. The pattern of the hindwing is similar to the forewing. In some forms the black tone is reduced on a few black stains.Naming
It was named argent and sable in 1778. Argent and sable refer to the heraldic color names for white and black. Their distribution is Holarctic. The species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of "Systema Naturae".Distribution
The species occurs in almost all parts of Europe. The distribution area stretches over the northern Asia to the Russian Far East and large parts of China on to Japan. The species occurs in large parts of North America. Currently three subspecies are distinguished "Rheumaptera hastata hastata", "Rheumaptera hastata nigrescens" and "Rheumaptera hastata thulearia".References:
Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.
