Scarce Copper
The Scarce Copper, Lycaena virgaureae, is a butterfly of the family Lycaenidae.
A generation appears from mid-July to mid-September. Eggs are laid on dried-out plant parts, for example on dry sorrel stems. The eggs are white in color and somewhat larger than those of other Lycaena species. The caterpillars are green and nocturnal and eat sorrel. The Scarce Copper is the only species of this genus whose eggs last over the winter. The butterflies feed on blossoms of such plants as the ground-elder, Eupatorium, Valeriana, and burnet saxifrage.
The Scarce Copper lives preferably on flower-rich, dry and damp meadows in Central Europe. In Spain it is found in the Pyrenees and in the Cantabrian Mountains. In southern France it is found in the Massif Central. Its area of distribution reaches the Arctic Circle in Fennoscandia in the north; in the south it reaches north and northwest Greece. In Belgium there are a few threatened populations in the south of the country. It is not found, however, on the British Isles or the Netherlands. It can be found as far east as Mongolia. The Scarce Copper is found at elevations of 1,000 to 2,000 meters.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarce_copper - 29.06.2011
Our Responsibility
When looking at pictures of fascinating landscapes, exotic animals and beautiful plants the thought is tempting: I would like to see the real thing as well .
Though this wish is understandable, it would be the exact contrary to the goal that "brilliant-creation.org" pursues: More appreciation and protection of creation as the result of joy and increased knowledge of the same.
A vacation or educational trip to a faraway country sadly does exactly the contrary. As the joy for the beholder is inevitably connected to a further the destruction of nature.
This I want to contrast by quoting Marcel Proust:
The genuine expedition does not consist therein,
that we seek new landscapes,
but that we look with new eyes.
