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I am seeking the advice of the resident experts as to the identification of this lovely female Pyrgus that was photographed in Northern Spain last week.

She was found near Herrera de Soria at an altitude of 950m and was the largest Skipper that we encountered. My own thoughts are alveus, subspecies accretes but I'd like to know what Roger, Guy, and David think.

I'm currently in the Pyrenees, but accretus looks most likley to me. I can see good reasons to preclude anything else, and it does look right for accretus.

So little is known about accretus and there seem to be very few reliable reference photos even of males, so, given that this is a female, we are probably in unchartered terrirory. I rarely see females of nominate alveus.

Roger

Thank you very much for confirming that this is indeed accretus Roger. I'm very pleased as this is a lifer for me and the only one from the trip.

Hope you're having a great time in the Pyrenees.

All the best
Nigel.

Hi Nigel. Sorry not to have replied sooner - I've been on holiday, desperately trying to catch up with my own photos and reports as I went along.

It seems to me these are two different indivduals. The second looks like female carthami - and that would explain your comment about size. The first is a male (and not carthami). Do you have any uppersides that might belong to that one?

Guy

Well spotted, Guy.

As the upperside doesn't belong to the underside, it's a whole new game. I had just assumed that they did. Given that they are different individuals, I agree that the upperside is highly likely female carthami.

The underside looks most likely alveus (of which accretus is a subspecies and maybe the location would make it a possibility), but alveus tends not to have any clear distinguishing features on the underside, so it's often a matter of precluding everything else (a la Sherlock Holmes).

The world still awaits a photo of female accretus.

Roger