Purple Emperor

is a very conspicuous species of day butterfly. The wingspan of the adults is up to 70 mm. An interesting property of this butterfly is that depending on the sunlight angle of incidence, its wings change colour from brown and violet up to vivid metallically blue and vice versa. Apatura iris appears in free nature from June to August and can mostly be seen on forest paths, on borders of mixed forests, in wet valleys and bosky clearings. In the CR, Apatura iris is and endangered species.