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I can't compete with your sparkling image Marek, but here are three, for different reasons.. taken in Switzerland in 2011...

Well, I'm trying to start the threads only with representative photos

And this third shot must be definitely rated as interesting and worthy, both for the flower head and the imago itself. "Duskie" with open wings means you've been either lucky or very patient (or at least you got up very soon).

I'll certainly be shooting them next year here, presumably trying to nab them in some unusual position/situation (like sitting out of the burnet ). But it looks like Switzerland is a right place to meet them too.

I haven't seen them enough to know just how difficult it is to see them with open wings, only read the books...

- but this battered female was behaving totally different to all the others... so much so I just wondered if she was somehow injured, say for example a non lethal encounter and escape from a spider (????). This pic shows a miniscule scattering of blue scales near the body..

They never do that! You just proved 9/10 level of luck! (10/10 would go for a fresh, partly blue male )

From what I've seen, they're even more "rearwings-only" and closely tied to the host plant than Scarce Large Blues (Arions/Large Blues are quite often sunbasking with opened wings I'd say).

I gravedigged and remade one more fresher "Duskie" (I said I have a tons of them ). I decided to keep this one darker..



I realized I have one male's forewings which is a rarity, but on a crappy photo.

Great pictures, Marek and Rev!

Dusky large blues do indeed occasionally settle with the wings open, like their congeners, and I don't think it is a sign of anything wrong with the butterfly. The problem for the photographer is that they don't usually do it for very long and once they've shut the wings again they may stay like that indefinitely.

I had a brief window of opportunity this summer but after my first, distant record shot of the event she closed her wings and that was that. It was quite late in the day.



All the other large blues love basking with their wings open, but dusky is a very special species in lots of ways. For one thing, it is nearly always stuck to greater burnet, as it is in all the above pictures except mine. It even mates on these flower-heads. I find it a wonderfully enigmatic species.

Guy

There is a remarkable photo on this discussion board http://www.insecte.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6307 showing this butterfly's obligate parasite Neotypus pusillus, along with the foodplant and a couple of specimens of the butterfly in the background. All that is missing to illustrate the complete lifecycle is the appropriate ant.

Matsukaze wrote:There is a remarkable photo on this discussion board http://www.insecte.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6307 showing this butterfly's obligate parasite Neotypus pusillus, along with the foodplant and a couple of specimens of the butterfly in the background. All that is missing to illustrate the complete lifecycle is the appropriate ant.

That is an amazing photo

Yes - an interesting photograph. The poster mocks the butterflies for moving off as soon as a parasite rubs against them. Does this photo, which I took in 2006, show a parasite attempting to dislodge the butterfly? I didn't identify it as a parasite at the time but it does look rather similar.



Guy

Since my 2011s Duskies were nothing but average, badly postprocessed crap, I'm adding the ancestors.

In 2012 I've seen Duskies flying from Burnet to Burnet at up to 10 sites, making tons of shots. Mostly crap as usual but these ones are one of the best achieved.

This season I want to be better again plus add the "open winged" photo, as well as damn Great Burnet absent from the picture, at least once! (It happens, barely but does.)

Some very nice pictures

Your last shot is particularly good, Marek, although we know you like to rub our noses in it!

The Annoying Czech wrote:Since my 2011s Duskies were nothing but average, badly postprocessed crap, I'm adding the ancestors.

Nice shots. And they're in much better nick than my ancestors ...

Guy