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Apollo: the Greek-Roman god of light, health and music, to whom Mount
Parnassus was holy, the United States space program, leading astronauts
into death and to the moon, a theatre in Harlem, where Ella Fitzgerald
and James Brown used to perform, and a genus of butterflies often to
open the ball of species in specialist books: Parnassius.
Already in the earliest scientific literature treating the Swiss world
of insects, "Papilio Apollo" is to be found. In the "Directory of Swiss
Inseckts Known to Him" ("Verzeichnis der ihm bekannten Schweizerischen
Inseckten") published 1775, it is listed as No. 545 by Johann Caspar
Füssli, brother of Henry Füssli:
Papilio Apollo. The red
eye-mirror. On the Hill called Lägerberg in Zurich, Mount Salèva by
Geneva, the Jura Mountains, in the vicinity of Sion in the Valais (au
Tourbillon) and in Grisons.
Johann Caspar Füssli junior
(1743-1786) was active as a painter, as was his father (senior), his
brother "Henry Fuseli", famed until today, and his three other
siblings. He was intensely occupied with entomology (insect research).
His insect directory, dated 1775, encompasses 1203 species and also
contains animals such as spiders, crabs and scorpions, which today no
longer are considered to be insects. In his days, though, Füssli was
absolutely on the cutting edge of contemporary research, closely
cooperated with specialists from inside the country and from abroad
and, of course, applied the classification methods in principle still
in use today in order to classify plants and animals developed by his
contmporary Linné, the "Royal Swedish Knight and Private Physician Carl
Linnaeus", who had described Apollo as early as 1758.
Füssli was
fascinated by the variety of habitats offered by a country like
Switzerland, and in the preface to his Directory of Insects he quotes
Albrecht von Haller:
Switzerland with its habitats reproduces
the conditions of nearly all countries, starting in Spitzbergen and
proceeding to Spain.
This variety of habitats hosts a large
number of species, plants and animals. Johann Caspar Füssli eagerly
collects insects on his journeys through the territories, which then
belonged to the Swiss Confederation. He catches them and adds them to a
collection, dead. As a restless traveller he finds no time to observe
the life of the insects:
Still some insects exist here, which
I have had the opportunity of capturing during diverse travels through
Grisons, the Valltellina, some of the Italian bailiwicks, the Livinio
Valley, parts of the Territory of Berne, the Valais, along Lake Geneva
to Geneva, and the nearby mountains, Salèva, and Jura, and capture them
I had to, as these diverse journeys took place swiftly and I had no
time to remain anywhere for long.
Three species can be found in the Alps:
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