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Hello again,
Another wonderful holiday in the French side of the mountains brought some shots of butterflies and I turn to you for help. I have the Collins guide but still have ID questions. I'm fairly confident that these are Adonis Blue (waits to be shot down in flames!). More Adonis Blue (?) but what is the smaller one to the left? Are these the same species and what is it please?
Again, I don't know these.

Thanks for any and all help given.

David
www.dragnil.co.uk primarily birds but I love all wildlife.

Sorry for the finger trouble, the third and fourth images are duplicates This is the one I should have used for the comparison question. Thanks.

Hi David
Thanks for posting on here. I was also in the French Pyrenees at the same point in time, on the Greenwings Butterflies and Botany trip.

I'm still learning when it comes to European butterflies, but here are my diagnoses of your photos.

First photo - Yes to Adonis Blue's

Second photo - There's very little to go on with this photo, as the underside is partly obscured, and it would be good to have an upperside too. I can see the hint of a partly obscured cell spot in the underside of the forewing, so it may be Common Blue.

Third/Fourth photos (the duplicates) - I'm 99% this is a Small Skipper.

Fifth photo - I'd struggle with these, but my best guess is Alpine Grizzled Skipper. Others on here may have a better idea.

Sixth photo - I'm relatively confident this is Weaver's Fritillary.

Seventh photo - This is a Small Skipper

Happy for others on here to disagree, but hope this helps!
Best Wishes
Paul

The skipper Paul tentatively identified as alpine grizzled skipper (andromedae) isn't that. There are lots of things about it that say this, but one interesting one is the submarginal region of the hindwing, which has a kind of 'diaphanous veil' pattern in alpine grizzly, rather than well defined spots. As to what the butterfly actually is: I'd love to see an underside! The forewings scream worn safflower skipper (carthami) and what appear to be sharks' teeth in the submarginal region of the hindwing look good too. But safflower skipper normally has much better marked hindwings. In Switzerland, olive skippers (serratulae) can look very like safflower skippers, and these have poorly marked hindwings - but they don't have the sharks' teeth (instead, they have rather diffuse spots).

My best guess is a somewhat anomalous and rather worn safflower skipper, but I won't be at all put out if someone disagrees! And I might change my mind by the morning ...

Guy

I'm not going to disagree, Guy, as I think it's the most likely candidate amongst those of this genus found in that area.

It's often a case of eliminating Pyrgus group members when one sees an unusually marked individual, and this is certainly unusually marked for carthami. That said, the 'bullet' markings on the hindwings and the strongly marked forewings would make carthami the favourite. In all honesty, I can't really think of another suitable candidate, even though the hindwings are very scantily marked.

I agree this is nearly 100% carthami, even from the upperside view alone. The forewing markings are almost conclusive, strong marks and very white, plus the cell spot is often this shape for carthami.

As to the hindwing submarginal markings, as Guy says, of the options it can only be carthami. The only other possibility could be Yellow-banded Skipper (P. sidae) and it appears this could be ruled out on location and altitude. These markings for carthami can be quite variable, sometimes very strong, sometimes weaker, but always the same pattern.

Here is a (non-worn) female with very vestigial markings, even allowing for the fact that Pyrgus females are usually less strongly marked than males. Roger

Thank you gentlemen, that was far beyond my boundaries but may I ask another question?
The butterflies were all on very shallow water which had drained down the hillside and I am curious as to why they found this particular patch so attractive. Are they simply drinking or could there be minerals and/or nutrients in the water?
Thanks again,
David

Butterflies puddling are almost exclusively males, David. They are seeking minerals that they can store for reproductive purposes.

Thanks, David. I had to read that twice to see what a butterfly pudding was.

There is a Pyrgus on the left hand side sharing the mud with the Blues in the second picture down showing its underside. Is there any chance this might be the same butterfly? were the pictures taking at the same time?

Thanks for the help with the Pyrgus Guy, David, Roger!

Hi Buggy. I had noticed that other skipper and decided not to comment for the moment! I think it’s a different individual, and I don’t think it’s carthami. The underside of carthami looks as if it were etched in outline first, then painted. My best bet would be serratulae - olive skipper. I have some very similar shots from Switzerland. The classic oval spot doesn’t look perfect in this picture, but because of the light and the angle you can’t be sure about that.

This is serratulae from Switzerland, from a similar angle:



A characteristic of serratulae uns is the apparent lack of venation, as the veins are the same colour as the background (unlike, say, armoricanus, in which the veins are bright and clear.

Guy

We can certainly rule carthami out via what we can see of the underside.

Safflower Skipper has very distinctive hindwing undersides, with a noticeable white band which extends all the way down the margin as in this individual:

I agree with Guy, and would add that there are also three clues to serratulae from what can be seen of the underside markings:
Discal s1 looks non-leaning basally – nearly all other candidates have a leaning mark here
Discal s4/5 looks to be broadly rectangular – indicative of serratulae
Marginal s2 looks neat and sagittate and solid-ish – armoricanus is usually rather messy here

To explain what is meant by this notation, this may help
https://www.butterfliesoffrance.com/Pyr ... iagram.htm

This all sounds a bit smoke and mirrors, but Pyrgus ID is rarely conclusive (if ever) and best guesses often rely on a combination of factors. Some time ago I endeavoured to put together a chart that summarised these factors https://www.butterfliesoffrance.com/Pyr ... rsides.htm

There are ID guides, one in French by Cedric Jacquier and one in English by Bill Raymond. If anyone would like the links to these, I can provide them.

One piece of evidence that strongly suggests that it is not carthami is that the background colour of the hindwing is much lighter in carthami, producing much less contrast with the white marks – this is typical Roger

PS beware of the continuous white marginal band, said to be a strong pointer to carthami - some serratulae can also show this
This last comment wasn't in response to David's comment, which I hadn't seen when I posted

I'm sorry, I've been out today, and I take my hat off to you all - this seems to be as hard as identifying some warblers when they won't sing...

For Bugboy, the two shots were within a couple of minutes, the solo in pic 5 was 15:54:12 and the one with the blues was at 15:56:48.
This image hasn't changed colour at all, just a tweak to the levels for good dynamic range - I hope it is helpful despite the obvious noise.

Here's an Olive Skipper adopting a similar pose that I photographed in the French Alps in 2020, Dragnil. Hope it helps:

Looks like a good match to me - many thanks to all for the help.
Best wishes to all on a great forum,
David

This has been a fun thread to work through.

I must admit my initial thought was not for carthami as I’m so used to identifying that species by relying on the obvious hindwing markings alone.

I was perfectly happy with the expert reasoning that pointed strongly towards carthami despite the unusual hindwing until that is, Paul pointed out the other puddling Pyrgus.

For all the reasons already mentioned I would agree that serratulae is the best fit for this second butterfly. I would like a better view of the classic oval spot, and also the slightly pinched nature of the discal s4/5 mark bothers me a little but I think these slight reservations are comfortably outweighed by the positive features that point towards serratulae - so that’s fine, but…..

I think they’re the same individual!
The forewing marks seem to match, to me at least. I realise the angle of view throws things off considerably but the relative positions and shapes/sizes of the marks seem consistent across the two photos. Of course others may see this differently but for me I was left trying to decide between an olive skipper with an odd upperside or a safflower skipper with a very odd underside. Neither conclusion would be satisfactory but I think if I were to see that individual in the field I’d be more surprised to be told it was safflower than olive, so I’ll go olive on that basis!

I confess, I was taken in by the foreshortening. Benjamin and Buggy are right - these are the same insect.

Here is the wing of the supposed serratulae resized, foreshortened and set next to that of the supposed carthami:



I think there's no doubt...

And here's the hindwing of the supposed serratulae made to look a little more flat-on:



Guy

And here's a curve ball ... What about bellieri? I considered that and rejected it before my first post, but for me, it's still in the picture. The reason I thought of it was the way the paint on the forewing sort of seeps out along the cracks in the wood (so to speak!). In the first of the two following pictures, both taken in the Pyrenees, the male is on the right. In the second, he is on the left:





Guy