Firstly, gorgone, or the Gavarnie ringlet. This is a male:
This male has a white mark on his thorax which I think might be where a red acarian mite had been clinging:
Erebia butterflies very commonly carry these mites and that is a prime position for them [EDIT: Having just produced that close-up I now wonder if it is in the right place for an acarian...]. Here is a Piedmont ringlet, meolans, carrying a whole bundle. This photo was taken after a week of bad weather when she must have been lurking in the grass. Maybe that had an effect:
Here is a female gorgone:
Quite a different beast, especially on the underside.
Flying with the meolans and gorgone were oeme (bright-eyed ringlet)...
... and epiphron (small mountain ringlet).
That individual was caught in a disused spider's web and had been there so long it had given up struggling. I thought it was dead. But when I attempted to disengage it (I wouldn't have interfered if the spider had been active at the web) it sprang back to life!
My good deed for the day.
Pyrenean brassy ringlets were abundant at the same site, so here's that seriously brassy picture again!!
They look very conspicuous there, but their undersides are cryptically coloured for almost perfect camouflage on the stony tracks:
I almost trod on that pair.
Here is the sooty black form of yellow-spotted ringlet (manto) at a different site:
I found manto with a little red on it in a meadow very near the gorgone site:
Piedmont ringlets are abundant everywhere in the Val d'Aran. Here is a female:
When you browse a book like Tolman the Erebia group can seem huge and daunting. But in the field they are relatively easy to identify and each species has its quirks and particularities. I really enjoy them.
Guy
