www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

These may all be the same species (apart from one) but can anyone tell me what they might be.

Thanks again
Paul

I'll say Boloria euphrosyne with one B. selene in the middle (3). Now I'll just wait for Padfield's axe to fall...

JKT wrote:Now I'll just wait for Padfield's axe to fall...

I think you're far better qualified than I am to do these northern forms, JKT!! But for what it's worth, I would agree with you (and anyway, now term has begun I keep my axe at school, where it is really needed). The middle one (the underside one) is selene and the others euphrosyne. It's very interesting for me to see this dark form of euphrosyne, which I have never seen in the flesh, and also interesting that the last male is quite 'normal'.

I presume the melanism helps to maximise the radiant heat the butterfly can wring from the northern sun, the same way we get melanistic forms of some other species high in the Alps. Here is a violet fritillary, Clossiana dia, that I photographed today:



It needs all that black, as it has started to get quite cold up here already... But I've never seen anything like those dark euphrosyne here.

Guy