More from the Pyrennees - Skippers

[Robin]

Hi,
Pat and I also went to the (Hautes) Pyrenees this year in the first two weeks of July. We were ar Estaing which is at 1000m about 23km south of Lourdes. We were disappointed by how few species of butterfly we saw (around 40 at present). Halfway through the holiday we met a national Park warden who said that the season was much delayed by poor weather. In fact he said that a couple of days earlier when we were having rain, it was snowing above 2000m. Anyway, to the butterflies. I've got quite a few that I would be grateful for help in identifying, so I've divided them int separate species groups. This first lot are Grizzled Skippers.

Is this an Oberthur's??

Grizzled Skipper sp (Lac d'Estaing 09-07-08)-5932.jpg (118.1 KiB) Viewed 778 times

Another Oberthur's ??

Grizzled Skipper sp (Lac d'Estaing 01-07-08)-5568.jpg (130.8 KiB) Viewed 778 times

Possible Large Grizzled:

Large Grizzled Skipper (Lac d'Estaing 05-07-08)-5825.jpg (132.48 KiB) Viewed 775 times

I'm afraid that I have no idea what the rest are, some maybe too worn to tell:

Grizzled Skipper sp (gavarnie 04-07-08)-5620.jpg (141.44 KiB) Viewed 775 times

Grizzled Skipper sp (Gavarnie 04-07-08)-5644.jpg (141.12 KiB) Viewed 773 times

Grizzled Skipper sp (Gavarnie 04-07-08)-5788.jpg (85.24 KiB) Viewed 773 times

Grizzled Skipper sp (Lac d'Estaing 01-07-08)-5533.jpg (102.92 KiB) Viewed 773 times

Grizzled Skipper sp (Lac d'Estaing 09-07-08)-5986.jpg (132.6 KiB) Viewed 772 times

Grizzled Skipper sp (Pyrenees 4.7.08)pat -5034.jpg (106.68 KiB) Viewed 771 times

That's the lot for now, Thanks in advance,

Robin

[Padfield]

Hi Robin,

I'm sorry you saw less than you hoped. I too found that the year was late in the Pyrenees, though as you know I went pretty much as you came home.

Here's a first dash through your skippers, with all the usual health warnings, caveats, doubts &c.!!

I agree 1 is most likely Oberthür's. The spots in s1 are often combined into a single spot like that and the well-marked hindwing, as well as the light on the forewing are all consistent.

2 could well be female Oberthür's, though I wouldn't stake even half a pint on just that view!

3 looks most like olive skipper. The unmarked hindwing, the very small spots on the forewing and the scanty mark outside the cell on the forewing are all perfect for this species. It doesn't look like large grizzly to me.

4 and 5 are definitely red-underwing skipper - the markings are characteristic and not shared by any Pyrgus species.

7 and 8 look a lot like rosy grizzled skipper. This is a species for which you need a good underside view to be sure, since the upperside is rather ambiguous. The underside in 6 is tantalising because it could be rosy grizzled but none of the distinctive characters of this species are well-marked (the anvil-shaped spot, the dark edging and the 'signe de Blanchier' on the unh). First brood rosy grizzled skippers in Switzerland are very distinctive but I don't have a good second brood underside picture and pictures on the web show much less classic features in many cases. This is first brood in CH:



I'll see what others think about these insects and come back to you!

Guy

[Padfield]

I forgot about the last one! If it was big, I would consider the form centralhispaneae of large grizzled skipper. Otherwise, Oberthür's would again be the default, though the forewings do not look so bright and suffused with pale scales as male Oberthür's normally look.

I'd be interested in Roger's and Paul's opinions, or any of the others who regularly watch Pyrgus species abroad.

Guy

[Roger Gibbons]

Pyrgus. I’m a big fan of this group but my wife’s eyes start to glaze over at the mere mention of the word.

Altitude information is always useful as it may help to eliminate some species that have specific altitude requirements. Lac d’Estaing looks to be around 1200m. This is about the lower end of the range for carlinae (see comments below).

Don’t take my ramblings as anything more than indications. I’ve never met anyone who can ID pyrgus with confidence. Not even Tim.

1 (5932) – this looks good for Large Grizzled Skipper (pyrgus alveus) centralhispaniae (which is completely different to the nominate alveus) which I believe flies in the central Pyrenees. I think the bold jagged markings rule out everything but this. My doubts arise from the fact that Guy didn’t suggest this.

2 (5568) – hard to say but Carline Skipper (pyrgus carlinae) is a strong possibility based on what little is on view. The books say that carlinae has a “C” shaped fw cell spot, but I find it is often just angled like “<” or flat on the outer edge and concave on the inner, which this seems to be (pic below). I find carlinae to be fairly common, always assuming that I’m ID’ing them correctly.

Grizzled Skipper sp (Lac d'Estaing 01-07-08)-5568.jpg (142.9 KiB) Viewed 701 times

5 (5825) - Olive Skipper (pyrgus serratulae) looks good to me. I think this dark brown colouration is indicative of serratulae and the fw markings and virtually unmarked hw look right.

4&5 clearly Red-underwing Skipper (spialia sertorius).

6 (5788) – looks like carlinae again. The white marginal hw mark in s5 is quite a regular rectangle in carlinae (pic below), and this looks about right. The external edge of the discal mark is quite flat as well. The ups fw marking suggest carlinae, especially the cell spot. Undersides always make ID easier (relatively speaking!) and this is quite a good photo for ID purposes. I think almost every other pyrgus can be eliminated. I don’t think it’s Rosy Grizzled Skipper (pyrgus onopordi) for much the same reasons as Guy – the discal spot is said to look like an anvil (although a rather wobbly anvil at times) and there are several other features.

Grizzled Skipper sp (Gavarnie 04-07-08)-5788.jpg (82.28 KiB) Viewed 701 times

The links below are to what I believe are carlinae (this is my pyrgus page – you can scroll for other species):
http://www.butterfliesoffrance.com/html ... -_carlinae_

http://www.butterfliesoffrance.com/html ... -_carlinae_

7 (5533) – at the risk of being boring, carlinae again. That inside edge to the cell spot is very curved and I think this almost eliminates anything else (I have seen this on pyrgus e.g. Oberthur's Grizzled Skipper (pyrgus armoricanus) when carlinae can be discounted because the altitude is too low). I find this species to be quite common when I find it, which is reasonably frequent. I also find that it is rare to find multiple pyrgus in any one locality. Rather like erebia, one species tends to predominate.

8 (5986) – this is so worn, I would not like to venture an opinion. If I had to guess, I’d go for carlinae.

9 (5034) – very difficult. If it is onopordi, the fw markings look very light for a male. However, the hw looks too well-marked for serratulae. The colouring isn’t right for armoricanus and the hw markings are too pale. The cell spot doesn’t look curved enough for carlinae, but everything else looks about right. This is why pyrgus ID is difficult! If it was in the same locality as the others, I’d go for carlinae, simply on the grounds of probability.

[Padfield]

Very interesting!

I have to say, I don't see this carlinae thing the same way at all (though either or both of us may have been consistently misidentifying the butterflies - Pyrgus is very difficult)!! I live in an area where carlinae is reasonably common and they all have neat litle 'C' marks on their forewings. Here's a male and then a female:




They also have rather obscure markings around the edge of the hindwing upperside.

This next butterfly is very similar in many ways to Robin's first insect and I suspect they are the same species. I have mine down as armoricanus - it was flying with dozens of other armoricanus in the Pyrenees.



Now it may be that I'm not recognising carlinae often enough, because they don't look like my local ones. Or, Roger is seeing carlinae where there are none! Oh dear. Third opinion?

As an addendum, I find assorted groups of Pyrgus quite frequently. On my local mountain, malvae, carlinae, alveus and andromedae fly happily together, with possible serratulae among them. Along the valley, onopordi, malvae and carthami fly in the same tiny field and a little further along the valley carthami sups minerals next to serratulae. I find the same true of Erebia. I generally find 4 or 5 species at any given site. On my dog walk today I photographed pharte, melampus, manto and euryale (with an option on pronoe, but that one got away!) at one tiny site (where I was hoping to find a new colony of eriphyle) and on the way home the track was lined with melampus, euryale, ligea, pharte and aethiops all the way!!

Guy

[Roger Gibbons]

Pyrgus ID is so difficult I always try to get an underside shot, because the upperside alone is frequently not convincing enough. I think, of the “tricky” pyrgus, which for me includes alveus, armoricanus, serratulae, onopordi, carlinae and cirsii, only cirsii can be identified with confidence from the upperside alone.

I agree with your three ID’s. The first two have nice easy-to-ID “Cs” and the third has a fw cell spot not concave enough for carlinae in my book and the pale fw basal dusting is indicative of armoricanus. But I don’t feel Robin’s 5932 has this dusting. You have a centralhispaniae on your alveus page that looks, if not a dead ringer, quite close to 5932; I’d be interested to know why you thought it wasn’t centralhispaniae. 5932 also looks a good match to the male centralhispaniae in Tolman & Lewington.

The carlinae I have (putatively) seen have been substantiated in most cases by an underside shot. The “C” clue is nice when it’s very clear but I don’t think the presence of a slightly murky C denies carlinae. Matt’s carlinae page has mostly “murky Cs” – here’s the link – but I would doubt that Matt has got these wrong.
http://www.eurobutterflies.com/species_ ... rlinae.htm

5788 underside hw looks to be the reddish-brown ground colour of carlinae, admittedly hard to tell for sure when the light is coming through the wing, the veins don’t seem prominent as I would expect for armoricanus, and the discal marks look too uniform and not jagged as I feel armoricanus would be.

Just to clarify, I didn’t intend to suggest that single pyrgus and erebia species occur to the exclusion of other species, but I do find that they predominate. In my local patch in Var, there is a big colony of cirsii and of armoricanus, and these make up about 90% of the pyrgus at each site. In my Swiss Alpine trek this year, the erebia near Evolene were 90% meolans, and below Mattmark 90% euryale with some melampus and tyndarus. Of the “tricky” pyrgus, I don’t feel I’m seeing more than two in any one place, maybe rarely.

I travel extensively through France and Switzerland each year and the variation from place to place can be enormous. You would think you had seen hundreds of different species sometimes.

Robin, rest assured that whatever your next batch for ID, it’ll be easier than pyrgus!!

Note - 5788 just seen those white discal marks in s2 and s3 - they shouldn't be there for carlinae. Hmmm....

[Robin]

Guy and Roger,

Thanks for going to such trouble to help me sort these out. I didn't realise that it was such a difficult subject.

Three of them you both agreed on (nos 2,3 & 4 (5825,5620 & 5644)). Regarding the rest, and carefully reading what you have written and going back to the books again (Tolman & Lewwington, Lafranchis) my conclusions are as follows:

No 1 (5932) is amoricanus based on Guy's picture and T&L. Unfortunateley Lafranchis doesn't show a centralhispaniae so he's no help. (Nothing personal Roger)
No 2 (5568) not enough detail to make a determination.
No 6 (5788) not enough detail to make a determination.
No 7 (5533) not enough detail to make a determination.
No 8 (5986) Carline (P. c. cirsii)
No 9 (5034) possible centralhispaniae

I've probably made a complete hash of that. Next time I'll pay the Grizzleds more attention and try to get some underwing shots as well.
I think that's all the help I need. We saw dozens of fritillaries, but on examining the photos we only saw 3 species - Heath (with lots of variation from thinly to very heavily marked), Pearl-bordered and High Brown - all species we can see in the UK.
With the Blues we saw Small, Mazarine, Amanda's, Geranium Argus, Brown Argus, Common and Silver-studded - at least some new ones there!!

Guy and Roger, once again thanks for all your help,
Best regards,
Robin

[Padfield]

Thanks to you, too, Robin. I've made progress with some Pyrgus over the years and feel increasingly confident in the Alps. But it is a very complex group and being rather sedentary the butterflies show great variation. I think your pictures would be perfectly good enough for someone who was familiar with the particular species in that area to say just what they are! I'm very interested in Roger's comments about carlinae and wonder if I have been under-identifying that species.

Much of my progress with Pyrgus and Erebia has been made using a net. I don't kill the butterflies ever, but the net allows me to study both sides of an individual. Even so, I have photographs of skippers from right close up, sitting happily on or in their plastic boxes, that I cannot definitively place! There's a lot of work still to be done!

I'm glad you got some new species and valuable experience, even if you saw less than you had hoped. I think it was my lack of organisation that meant we didn't meet up this year - perhaps another year. And don't ignore Switzerland as a possible holiday destination!!

Best wishes,

Guy

[Roger Gibbons]

It was easy to agree on 5620 and 5644 – these aren’t pyrgus!

5932 looks to me to have an alveus wing shape, or at least a wing shape that I have come to associate with it. I’ve attached the page from T&L that shows centralhispaniae and armoricanus together. The strength of the markings looks too strong and too jagged for armoricanus to me, but I’ll leave others to judge. My main reservation is that the alveus cell spot and the mark external to it usually looks like two brackets almost closing to form a circle, which this does not. Lafranchis, in his Europe book, does not mention, describe or illustrate centralhispaniae, which I find an amazing omission given it’s dramatic difference to nominate alveus.

pyrgus.jpg (103.67 KiB) Viewed 579 times

There are some good web sites for pyrgus – Guy’s, Matt Rowlings, Tim Cowles, leps.it, and mine (delete the adjective “good” - mine is more a discussion page than a claim to be authoritative).

The illustrations in Lafranchis’ French book are some of the worst photos I’ve ever seen and really not good enough for a master work of this quality. Sorry, Tristan, if you should read this. The text is superb and probably has information not easily found anywhere else and well worth the asking price alone (I think I’ve extricated myself).

It’s probably best to consider carlinae and cirsii as separate species. Carlinae was hitherto considered to be the upland form of the lowland cirsii. I don’t think they ever fly together as there’s little overlap in their altitude ranges. 5986 is the one photo I would say was most difficult to ID – but that cell spot isn’t wide and regular enough for cirsii to me. They’re hard enough to ID when fresh!

5034 doesn’t look centralhispaniae to me – the white marks look way too light and the hw markings not sufficiently well-defined. Much would depend on what it looked like when you saw it, the size, etc.

It's good to have your comments - I've found healthy debate to be vital in building knowledge in the difficult areas.

It may be worth submitting a few photos of fritillaries – Heath can be very variable, but you could have meadow and False Heath (Guy has mentioned the Pyrenean form vernetensis) in there. At least that would bump up your species count.