Re
erebia, I would agree with Misha that the Piedmont Ringlets (
Erebia meolans) on Juha's page are indeed that. Juha, I think your two “uncertain”
E. triaria are that, for the aligned ocellus reasons mentioned above. I also think that your
E. aethiops is correctly identified as such, as the dark sex brand is quite visible and the red upf postdiscal band shows a slight constriction at s3.
Meolans seems quite variable in that the red upf postdiscal band can be solid and quite wide, but can also be broken at the veins in a way that looks quite different. It tends to be very black when fresh, especially on the unh but tends to lose this after a while and become dark brown. This photo (12202) had me fooled last summer as I had rashly and too readily assumed that it was
meolans from the strong red upf band and the large bright ocelli and I put it up on my
meolans page. It was exceedingly common in the Valais in Switzerland. However, I had overlooked the fact that the fringes were chequered and this ruled out
meolans and meant that it had to be Large Ringlet (
E. euryale) as only this and Arran Brown (
E. ligea) have chequered fringes and
ligea is much larger (showing what a daft name the English name is).
- erebia euryale_12202W.JPG (116.83 KiB) Viewed 797 times
In fact, I was forced to conclude that all the
meolans I thought I had seen were in fact
euryale and further on checking my records that I had only ever seen
meolans in the Pyrenees.
This
euryale is of the form
adyte which is VERY different from the nominate form which has typically very small upf ocelli, often blind (i.e. no white pupils) although this form strangely does not get a mention in the Lafranchis ID book. The underside of
adyte is largely unmarked compared to the strongly dentate (tooth-shaped) white unh mark of the nominate form, which is normally shown in the books as the characteristic feature. I feel this is potentially misleading.
Re
pyrgus, Misha you are right in that there is not usually a rush to offer
pyrgus ID advice. You obviously know this area well if you comment that an underside view would be far more helpful. Perversely, this may have been easier to ID in the field than from a photo – did it look significantly larger than your average
pyrgus? If it did, Large Grizzled Skipper (
Pyrgus alveus) is a distinct possibility. I rather doubt that it is Olive Skipper (
P. serratulae) as the uph marking just look a little too strong, even though
alveus is quite lightly marked too. I doubt Oberthur’s GS (
P. armoricanus) as the uph is usually more clearly marked, given that it is obviously a male. For much the same reason, I would be inclined to rule out Rosy GS (
P. onopordi). This leaves Carline GS (
P. carlinae) which could be a possibility but doesn’t occur in Italy, so that’s easy. Altitude information is often very helpful as it could eliminate several contenders and narrow the field.
Incidentally, check out the Italian distribution of
serratulae in Tolman & Lewington (occurs in a small region of central Italy) and Lafranchis (occurs in the whole of the country)!!! Equally, Lafranchis does not make reference to the
alveus higher-altitude form
centralhispaniae, which is very different to the nominate form in that it is much more heavily marked. I guess you can’t cover everything in one small field guide, but this does seem a major omission.
Alveus does occur in this region of Italy and this is what I would go for, if forced to guess. The truth is that no-one really knows without examination of the genitalia.
Guy must be away. Otherwise I doubt he could resist some head-scratching
erebia and
pyrgus questions.
