Erebia seen in the French Alps

[David M]

Can someone with greater erebia experience than me help with this one?

Seen on 12 July at 2,360m in the Queyras.

I saw aethiopella at the same site but this doesn't look like the same butterfly.

Any suggestions welcome:

[petesmith]

Hi David, I am guessing you would have posted an underside if you had one.
How about gorge, ssp/f.erynis?

[Padfield]

I go for gorge too, especially noting the hindwing projection and the considerable altitude.

Guy

[Roger Gibbons]

I wouldn't rule out aethiopella. The single blind ocellus would be a unusual, but the ocelli are normally very small and have very small white centres, so this is not that far off the scale. Otherwise, the forewing markings look as I would expect for aethiopella.

In terms of circumstantial evidence, aethiopella flies at this location, often at 2550m, and is not uncommon there. Also, I have never seen gorge there, and it is a location I have been visiting for some twenty years (I will be there tomorrow – although the metéo doesn't look too good). I would add that I saw gorge a couple of days ago not far away and it did not look like this, even allowing for the huge variability of this species. This is all circumstantial, but I mention it for what it is worth.

Roger

[petesmith]

This is very interesting...
I am assuming everyone agrees that this is either gorge or aethiopella?

I have also visited the Queyras quite a few times, although not as many as Roger, and agree that aethiopella is not scared of heights, and remains a possible ID. I have regularly found it at altitudes up to at least 2600m, higher than the maximum of 2400m stated in Tolman and Lewington, so altitude alone cannot separate the two.

My gut feeling is still for gorge, but I would be very interested to hear from David as to why he felt this was different to the aethiopella that he had seen. In terms of behaviour, I would say both species are quite different - I find gorge, like pluto, to be very relentless in flight, usually over scree slopes (males at least), and incredibly hard to approach. By contrast, aethiopella, in my experience, seems like a much friendlier, more easy to approach butterfly, landing frequently and easy to get close to.

Maybe anecdotal behavioural patterns might also give a bit of a clue?

Just out of interest, I photographed an Erebia in amongst a huge group of mud-puddling blues, in the same area of the Queyras back in 2017, at around 2600m. At the time I casually had it down as a definite aethiopella, but on closer retrospective examination I now have a small amount of doubt. Guy/Roger/David/anyone - opinions on this please...(the crop is very severe so quality is not great)

[Padfield]

Hi Pete (and David and Roger). To put my cards on the table: I've never seen aethiopella, as it doesn't fly in Switzerland and I've done almost all my alpine butterflying in Switzerland. That said, I would immediately have recognised that last one you posted as aethiopella. It ticks every box for the species in my head, including the general shape of the forewing band (tapering to the inner margin), the way the red is divided by the dark veins and the overall appearance. I don't think gorge would occur to me if I saw that. Rightly or wrongly, David's butterfly just makes me think gorge. I'd love to see more - a bit of underside, for example, or more of the hindwing - if only for my own education, and I certainly wouldn't argue against someone more experienced, like Roger, who might be able to see aethiopella in it.

I'll follow any further disussions with interest.

Great picture of the puddling blues, by the way!

Guy

[Roger Gibbons]

We await a response from David. Did it just look different or did it act differently?

If the former, then in what respect? Today I saw aethiopella with two small blind ocelli. For me, unless it was flying up and down rocky scree, it isn't gorge.

The fact that David could get a photo strongly suggests aethiopella as, as noted by Pete, gorge is monstrously difficult to photograph. Here is a photo of gorge I took a couple of days ago, not far away.

I got very lucky in that it came up over the near-vertical scree that it was flying up and down constantly and I had 20 seconds to get a photo. I waited another 90 minutes and never saw it again except on the scree.

For my money, Pete's Erebia is aethiopella 100%. It looks right, and - what else could it be?

Roger

[David M]

The original image is not mine. It was taken by a guest on the rocky scree and was very tricky to approach hence the lack of any further images (including an underside which might have proved definitive).

The aethiopella I saw was, by contrast, flying in the grassier area below the scree and landed conveniently and even when first disturbed, flew quite weakly to a nearby location and was quite approachable.

For the benefit of the group, I was able to capture this individual in a plastic vial and then release it in a shady area to better ensure it didn't take flight immediately: