Bad at Goodbyes

Rough Transcript

Intro 00:05

Welcome to Bad at Goodbyes.

On today’s show we consider the Macedonian Grayling.

Species Information 02:05

The Macedonian Grayling is a critically endangered butterfly native to the white marble mountains of North Macedonia in southeastern Europe. Its scientific name is Pseudochazara cingovskii and it was first described in 1973.

 

Description

The Macedonian Grayling is a small butterfly with a roughly two inch wingspan. The bottomside of their wings, the ventral side, the sides we see when the wings are closed, are light grey, and pale yellow, with light brown patches, and soft slightly darker lines. This coloration and patterning is a camouflage adapted to their habitat; they convincingly blend into the stoney marble landscape of their range.

 

The topside of the Macedonian Grayling’s wings, the dorsal side, the side we see when the wings are open, are a greyish brown, with stripes of pale yellow that darken into a reddish yellow, and with two large dark black ocelli per wing. Ocelli are eyespots, these are circular patterns on the wings of many butterfly and moth, that mimic eyes; this is an adaptation to confuse and startle potential predators, like birds, spiders, and dragonflies.

 

So there’s two protective strategies at play here, an initial reliance on stealth, camouflage, avoiding detection, and then simply by opening their wings, the butterfly can use fear and surprise to deter their predators.

 

Behavior

These are vital adaptations as the Macedonian Grayling is considered generally sedentary: they are infrequent flyers, they fly in small short bursts, rarely rising more than a few feet off the ground. Most of their days are spent basking or resting, and throughout their lives they’ll remain within a very small area, roughly less than half a square mile.

 

Macedonian Grayling are coldblooded, ectothermic, and so early mornings are spent basking on south-facing slopes of marble rock to raise their body temperature. Then they’ll forage, feeding nearby on the flower’s nectar of Knapweed and Prickly Thrift plants. As temperatures peak in the afternoon, they rest in the shade: in rock crevices or under overhangs or in shrub foliage, to survive the midday heat. They’ll briefly rouse again before dusk and then with sunset as temps cool, the butterfly goes dormant for the night.

 

Lifecycle

The Macedonian Grayling has an annual univoltine lifecycle, meaning they live for roughly a year, and produce one brood of offspring per year. They have four stages in their lives. First, the larval stage: emerging from their eggs in July or August, as tiny caterpillars; feeding on Meadow-grass and Fescue, and growing through summer and autumn in a series of molts. The caterpillar have a hard protective exoskeleton, and so as they consume plant matter and grow in size this exoskeleton becomes like a physical constraint. They get like too big for their armor. In order to continue growing, the caterpillar must shed this constrictive casing and replace it with a larger one. So, they produce hormones to begin to detach from their old exoskeleton and release a molting fluid that dissolves the inner parts of the old skin, recycling these “digested” nutrients to grow a new, larger exoskeleton underneath. To then shed the old outer part, the caterpillar swallows air or water swelling its body, splitting open the old exoskeleton, which it crawls out of. Then after emerging, the caterpillar must expand its new exoskeleton before it hardens. It continues to swell itself up, while a chemical reaction occurs in its skin cells strengthening and stiffening the new exoskeleton; a new larger suit of armor, to grow into, until they need to molt again.

 

In the Macedonian Grayling, this process repeats through the autumn, until the weather cools and the caterpillar goes dormant for the winter, slowing life functions, pausing feeding, growth, and development. This state is called diapause.

 

When the weather warms, and the landscape greens in the springtime, the Macedonian Grayling returns to feeding and molting until roughly May, after which they pupate and undergo metamorphosis. So, before their final molt, the last shedding of exoskeleton, they burrow into the soil, creating a tiny underground chrysalis in which to transform. Pedantic Note: moths metamorphose in cocoons, butterflies metamorphose in chrysalises.

 

Metamorphosis inside the chrysalis. Our caterpillar becomes a butterfly. Safely underground, the Macedonian Grayling caterpillar sheds its final exoskeleton and then releases digestive fluids, specialized chemicals that breakdown its own muscles, digestive tract, and much of its nervous system, into a nutrient-rich swirl of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates; this is the fuel for its forthcoming transformation.

 

And while most of the caterpillar’s tissues are broken down, its respiratory system and its heart continue to function and the imaginal discs remain intact. Imaginal discs are cell clusters, think like stem cells, that will differentiate into adult butterfly body structures. There’s an imaginal disc for the head, for the thorax, two for the forewings, two for the hindwings, six for the legs, etc. And so these cell clusters absorb the surrounding broken down liquid nutrients and grow, expanding into more complex structures and then connecting to one another. The wing discs grow to meet the thorax disc, the legs to the thorax, the thorax to the head. Cells continuing to specialize and differentiate; structures connecting, until we have a butterfly.

 

The butterfly then emerges from its underground pupal shell, through the soil to the surface. Their wings, at this point, are soft and tiny but they quickly harden and our new adult takes their first flight.

 

The adult Macedonian Grayling, lives for only about two weeks. Basking, resting, avoiding predators, and seeking a mate. The wings of the adult male Grayling have specialized androconial scales (scent scales), that produce pheromones to attract females, a form of sexual communication, received via antennae, that help female butterfly locate and assess potential mates.

 

Reproduction

Butterfly mate tail-to-tail and after mating the female seeks potential egg laying sites. Unlike many butterfly who lay eggs on the plants on which their larvae feed, Macedonian Grayling’s oviposit, that’s lay their eggs, in tiny cracks in the marble rock of their habitat.

 

The eggs develop for about three weeks, the larvae emerge and we begin again that four part lifecycle: a few weeks as an egg, about tens months as a caterpillar, about a month as a pupa metamorphosing underground, and then just a few weeks as an adult butterfly.

In The Dream

————

In the dream,

 

The dream of all earthbound, hungry things:

To change.

To become beautiful.

To fly.

 

To shed the stiff constrictions that can no longer hold me.

To breakdown the bits that no longer serve me.

To reorganize my longings into something brighter, something lighter.

 

To bask, to flutter, to sip a flower’s nectar

Howsoever briefly,

In the dream.

————

Habitat

The Macedonian Grayling is native to central North Macedonia, in southeastern Europe, specifically to the Pletvar Pass, a mountainous region in the Prilep Municipality. This is a landscape of steep, white marble and limestone slopes, with minimal soil and sparse vegetation; an arid high-altitude rocky shrubland, where the white stone reflects sunlight, creating a microclimate significantly warmer than the surrounding regions.

 

Blocks of white and light-gray marble protrude from the mountain slopes in outcrops marked by fissures and crevasses, a rough, textured landscape of gorges and rock fragments, small stones and large boulders, with sparse vegetation in pockets of low-lying shrubs and grasses.

 

Here, the Macedonian Grayling is found in seven small subpopulations across two hillsides, at altitudes of one half to one mile above sea level, a total area of less than four square miles. Though all concentrated in a small region, tracking studies have shown that the sedentary lifestyle of the Grayling means these subpopulation populations rarely interbreed.

 

The climate here is very seasonal. Summer months are hot and dry with high temperatures reaching into the 90s°F. But the winters are cold and sometimes snowy, with temperatures dropping into the 20s°F. The area receives roughly 25 inches per year of precipitation, with the majority falling during spring and autumn.

 

The Macedonian Grayling shares it marbled mountain with:

Prickly Thrift, Balkan Crocus, Macedonian Cicada, Bug Orchid, Balkan Fir, European Field Cricket, Juniper, Orchard Grass, Meadow Grass, Golden Eagle, Wall Lizard, Hungarian Oak, Scarce Swallowtail, Marble Rock-rose, Sheep’s Fescue, Rock Thrush, Knapweed, Wild Boar, Gray Wolf, Nose-horned Viper, Macedonian Mouse, Egyptian Vulture, Biting Stonecrop, Rock Partridge, and many many more.

 

Threats

In the 20th and into the 21st century, the primary threat to the Macedonian Grayling is industrial mining, commercial marble extraction. Currently, active quarries mine at five of the seven subpopulation sites, with wide-ranging impact on the butterfly’s habitat. There’s of course direct habitat destruction, the landscape marred by industrial equipment and marble extraction itself. Mining processes also produce a fine particulate matter, marble dust, that settles on surrounding vegetation, rendering it inedible to a Grayling caterpillar. And mining results in runoff toxic with heavy metals like zinc or lead that pollutes nearby groundwater, which is absorbed by the grasses the caterpillar feeds on and by the flowering shrubs the adult sips from, harmful to both.

 

Poaching is an additional contemporary threat. The Macedonian Grayling’s rarity means it is a sought after specimen in the blackmarket exotic insect species trade. An October 2025 article in the Brussels Times reports that Macedonian Graying individuals are poached, killed, pinned in displayed cases, and legally sold for 18-50 euros, like 35 bucks. A loophole in EU conservation law means that: “there are no penalties for selling or possessing [Macedonian Grayling specimen] once they have entered the EU market.”

 

And lastly anthropogenic, human-induced, climate change is an approaching threat. Climate models indicate that global warming, resulting from persistent over-reliance on fossil fuels, threaten over half of Europe’s endangered butterflies, including the Macedonian Grayling, whose already arid habitat will see increasing drought and extreme temperatures and weather in a warmer future.

 

Conservation

Fortunately, the North Macedonia government enacted legal protection of the Macedonian Grayling in 2011. These are laws which banned poaching and required consideration of the species by the commercial marble mining industry.

 

Public awareness campaigns, highlighting the rarity and the need to protect the species, have been implemented in the Prilep, Pletvar area.

 

That said, mining persists in the region. And poaching persists. A 2025 push to close the loophole that allows for the technically legal sale of these butterfly specimen in the EU, is, as yet, unresolved.

 

The Macedonian Grayling has been considered critically endangered on the IUCN Red List since 2010 and their population is currently in decline.

 

Our most recent counts estimate that less than 2500 Macedonian Grayling remain in the wild.

Citations 24:52

Information for today’s show about the Macedonian Grayling was compiled from:

 

Apelblat, Mose. “How Legal Loopholes Make EU a Destination for Illegal Wildlife Trade.” The Brussels Times, October 7, 2025 – https://www.brusselstimes.com/1781595/animal-welfare-how-legal-loopholes-make-eu-a-destination-for-illegal-wildlife-trade

 

Brown, J. 1976. “A Review of the Genus Pseudochazara de Lesse, 1951 (Lep., Satyridae) in Greece.” Entomologist’s Gazette 27: 85–90. – https://biodiversity.unitir.edu.al/Documenten/Brown_1976_Pseudochazara_tisiphone_amymone.pdf

 

Gullan, P. J., and P. S. Cranston. The Insects: An Outline of Entomology. 5th ed. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014. – https://archive.org/details/TheInsectsAnOutlineOfEntomology_201902

 

Institute of Communication Studies. “Nature for Sale.” YouTube video, 25:38. Posted by “Дома / Doma,” May 7, 2024. – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wNzxEW1w3w 

 

International Fund for Animal Welfare. “Legal Loopholes Make EU a Prime Destination for Stolen Wildlife Trade.” Press release, November 22, 2022. – https://www.ifaw.org/press-releases/legal-loopholes-eu-prime-destination-stolen-wildlife-trade

 

Middleton-Welling, J., Dapporto, L., García-Barros, E. et al. A new comprehensive trait database of European and Maghreb butterflies, Papilionoidea. Scientific Data 7, 351 (2020). – https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-020-00697-7

 

Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning. Fifth National Report to the Convention on Biological Diversity of the Republic of Macedonia. Skopje: Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning, 2014. https://www.cbd.int/doc/world/mk/mk-nr-05-en.pdf

 

Takáts, Kornél, and Morten Mølgaard. “Partial mtCOI-sequences of Balkanic species of Pseudochazara (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae, Satyrinae) reveal three well-differentiated lineages.” Entomologica romanica 19 (2014): 21–40. – https://entomologica-romanica.reviste.ubbcluj.ro/19_2014_2015/ER1920141504_Takats_et_Molgaard.pdf

 

van Swaay, C., Ellis, S. & Warren, M. 2025. Pseudochazara cingovskii. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2025: e.T160595A841785. – https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2025-1.RLTS.T160595A841785.en

 

Verovnik, Rudi & Micevski, Branko & Maes, Dirk & Wynhoff, Irma & Swaay, Chris & Warren, Martin. (2013). Conserving Europe’s most endangered butterfly: The Macedonian Grayling (Pseudochazara cingovskii). Journal of Insect Conservation. 17. – https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-013-9576-6

 

Verovnik R, Wiemers M (2016) Species delimitation in the Grayling genus Pseudochazara (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae, Satyrinae) supported by DNA barcodes. ZooKeys 600: 131-154. – https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.600.7798

 

Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudochazara_cingovskii

 

For more information about protecting species like the Macedonian Grayling from illegal trade please see the International Fund for Animal Welfare at https://www.ifaw.org/.

Music 26:43

Pledge 33:28

I honor the lifeforce of the Macedonian Grayling. I will commit its name to my record. I am grateful to have shared time on our planet with this being. I lament the ways in which I and my species have harmed and diminished this species. I grieve.

 

And so, in the name of the Macedonian Grayling I pledge to reduce my consumption. And my carbon footprint. And curb my wastefulness. I pledge to acknowledge and attempt to address the costs of my actions and inactions. And I pledge to resist the harm of plant and animal kin and their habitat, by individuals, corporations, and governments. I pledge to channel my rage at poachers and species traders into productive conservation.

 

I forever pledge my song to the witness and memory of all life, to a broad celebration of biodiversity, and to the total liberation of all beings.