Skipper ID please

[CFB]

All of these were seen in the Alpes-Maritimes at around 200 metres altitude.

This was at the end of May. Is it a Safflower Skipper?

This was a few days ago. Is it a Red Underwing Skipper?

This was this morning. I didn't manage to see its underside.

--
Thanks, Colin

[Padfield]

Hi Colin.

Your first is certainly safflower skipper. The second, I agree, is red-underwing skipper. The third, in my opinion, is most likely a female carline skipper. Others might have a different opinion on that last one!

Guy

EDIT - I've just noticed the altitude you give. That probably means a rethink on the carline...

[Roger Gibbons]

#1 is Yellow-banded Skipper (Pyrgus sidae) and #3 is 95% likely a female Oberthur's Grizzled Skipper(Pyrgus armoricanus).

[Padfield]

Ah! I completely forgot about yellow-banded. How do you separate them from the uppersides, Roger? That's a species I've never seen so I haven't got the jizz yet - but the overall appearance is very similar to safflower.

I'm very surprised at the suggestion of Oberthür's for the last one, because of the very weak hindwing markings and the pointlike forewing markings. Did you reach that by elimination or by some positive feature, Roger?

Guy

[Roger Gibbons]

Sidae is fairly consistent in terms of markings and colouring as it only occurs over a relatively small range. The mid-brown colour is typical while carthami tends to be a colder colour if brown (and often grey to charcoal-grey). The unh marks are consistent in that the carthami submarginal marks are thin and highly elongated and discrete while sidae’s are more diffuse. These may seem thin clues but in the field they seem more apparent. The circumstantial evidence is that carthami is rarely seen below 700m altitude in this part of the world whereas sidae is rarely seen above 400m.

On #3, the armoricanus clues are the basal sandy colouring at the base of the forewing, the right shade of brown ground colour and the light-ish forewing markings and pale hindwing discal mark and submarginal marks that are so diffuse as to be almost smudges. It seems to be only the male that has the more prominent hindwing markings (especially the discal mark) and the female is the same but less well developed on both the forewing and the hindwing. I have photographed many upper and under sides of Pyrgus in this region (especially armoricanus) and this seems to hold true. The options are onopordi and serratulae (I think anything else can be discounted) and it really doesn’t look right for serratulae (which would be unusual as low as 200m – I saw one a few weeks ago at 350m and I thought that was very low), and onopordi has gone by mid-May at the latest. Onopordi would maybe have been an option but the forewing markings seem too weak even for a female. I say 95% armoricanus but if we had the underside (and this is only occasionally possible) and it matched for armoricanus I would be near 100%.

Sorry if this is less than riveting for anyone not utterly fascinated by the minutae of grizzled skippers. My wife has perfected the art of slipping into a coma at the mere mention of the word Pyrgus.

[Matsukaze]

I like them myself - it is a shame we only have the one kind around here.

[Padfield]

Thanks Roger. I'll have to get some experience of sidae soon! Because the most obvious distinguishing features are on the underside I'd never really thought about how the upperside could be distinguished with confidence from carthami. As an aside, carthami is commonest in the valley floor in Switzerland (though the valley floor is about 500m in its strongholds in Valais).

I looked through all my pictures and discovered I'd never seen a female armoricanus (it's a rare butterfly in CH). Assuming you're right - and it seems the most likely option - it's interestingly very different from the male. I see a lot of female onopordi and I'm satisfied it's not that - they're very different (and, as you say, are currently between broods). Serratulae is very variable but this butterfly is also wrong for that.

I agree - Pyrgus are great!

Guy

[David M]

If Pyrgus can challenge you two to this extent, what chance have the rest of us got?

[CFB]

Thanks Roger and Guy.
--
Colin

[Tony Moore]

After this fascinating discourse, would someone kindly offer an opinion on the attached photographs of Pyrgus species? (Apart from the dreadful focus, that is ). They were all taken at the beginning of June in the Pyrenees, near to Gedre. Any help would be much appreciated, as I find them totally confusing .

Tony M.

[Padfield]

Hi Tony. Your first skipper is uncontroversial - it is red underwing (Spialia sertorius). The last one - the underside - is also quite easy. It is olive skipper (Pyrgus serratulae). Safflower skipper has a surprisingly similar underside but the central spot is edged in black and there are other differences. Like safflower skipper, olive skipper often has a complete white band around the edge of the hindwing underside.

I suspect the penultimate one is also an olive skipper, though without an underside I'm not happy to say that with any confidence.

Above that, on the pink flower (Primula sp.?) I think you have malvoides, the southern species/subspecies of grizzled skipper. Above that (on forget-me-not) I'm tempted to say malvoides again, though there are some features that make me doubt this.

My way of identifying almost everything, in the field, is to look at it and say what it is. Even with Pyrgus there's normally no conscious process involved - the name just comes when I see the butterfly (with exceptions - like the bellieri I'm claiming for the Pyrenees last year). I find this method very difficult with photos!! You don't get the true feel from a photo, nor a flight impression. So on that second picture I might have a sudden change of heart, or be corrected by Roger.

Guy

[MikeOxon]

This all goes to show how easy we have it in UK! A quick glance and anything that looks vaguely like any of these is a "Grizzled Skipper"

Mike

[Tony Moore]

Very many thanks, Guy, for your expertise and rapid response. Sadly, I rarely have opportunity to visit places where there are many Pyrgus types, so it is difficult to accumulate the necessary experience. However, your suggestion of 'just look and identify' really rang a bell - female Orange Tips seem to me to have a particular 'jizz' and can usually be picked out even at distance. Even flying PBFs and SPBFs look slightly different most of the time.


Tony M.

[Roger Gibbons]

The penultimate upperside (585) doesn’t seem to fit any species. It could be Olive (serratulae) – the weak forewing cell spot suggests this, but the rest of the marks are quite heavy for serratulae but maybe just about within the bounds. Maybe. The hindwing would be quite heavily marked for serratulae especially the rather defined submarginal row of marks.

It could be Safflower (carthami) with a very weak forewing cell spot. The hindwing looks better for carthami but we can’t really see it very clearly. The rather elongated forewing marks suggests 60% carthami 40% serratulae for me.

Size would be a factor as carthami would be appreciably larger and its flight is rather distinctive. As Guy says, often they are much easier to ID in the field. When you can only see one surface (and an upperside is probably the least helpful) and it doesn’t fit any “classic” pattern or characteristic, it is impossible to say with any confidence.

[Padfield]

I agree - ID of 585 will be little more than speculative without a view of the underside; but it's interesting to note that despite the impression books give (weakly marked ups, with small, rather sparse spots) Swiss serratulae are often quite boldly marked. Here is a poor photo of a serratulae I found skulking in the Rhône Valley last year:



In this case, it granted me an opportunity for an equally unsatisfactory, but conclusive in terms of ID, underside:



Indeed, the serratulae I saw yesterday was also very similar:



If you get an underside view of this species, a useful thing to note (that the books omit) is that the veins, especially vv. 1, 2 and 3 of the hindwing, are coloured in the same shade as the ground colour, so when the light doesn't catch them they disappear. This, coupled with the absence of any dark shading around the spots, gives a characteristic and instantly recognisable appearance.

If you get an underside view...

Guy

[Tony Moore]

Roger - many thanks for your input. It's a really fascinating group. I'm pretty sure that I saw many malvoides during my visit. They were smallish, dark and appeared to have a pronounced white spot in the middle of the upper hw. This spot was nothing like so obvious in the subsequent photographs, which bears out Guy's remarks about ID being easier in the field. Life's just not long enough....

Tony M.

[Roger Gibbons]

That is certainly a weird Swiss serratulae. I you had seen the upperside alone there is no way anyone would ID it as such – unless of course you had inside information. Not only are the marks very white and well-developed (as the books would describe it) but they are very concise (as opposed to being rather diffuse) and the large cell spot is almost the opposite to what you expect from serratulae. I used the word “maybe” regarding Tony’s specimen in respect of the strength of forewing markings being within the limits of normal serratulae, and this is some way behind Guy’s.

However… one glance at the underside and you could have no doubt it was serratulae. The key features are 1) the colour, 2) the non-conspicuous veins (as Guy says), 3) the roughly quadrangular discal mark in s4/5, 4) the marginal mark in s2 being a filled and rounded arch, 5) the non-leaning discal bump in s1, 6) the oval-ish basal mark in s7. The evidence is easily enough to ID serratulae with 100% certainty, and this level of confidence is a luxury in Pyrgus-land.

The point to bear in mind is that the books, e.g. Tolman & Lewington, only illustrate the “type” specimen and major variants. If you are not familiar with local populations that are markedly different, accurate ID is almost impossible.

Malvae – or malvoides as it now seems to be defined as a separate species in southern France – is usually identifiable by the hindwing discal spot as you say, Tony. This mark seems to me to resemble an old-fashioned clothes peg and is almost unique to malvoides. This mark is to a large extent mirrored on the underside.

I will try to load a local male and female armoricanus in a future posting but my odd wifi connection here seems to log me out whenever I try to post with a jpeg in it.

[Roger Gibbons]

Here is a female armoricanus (29198, shot in the diminishing evening light) and a female onopordi (29992) and the underside (29995) showing the characteristic (supposedly) anvil-shaped discal spot and black edging. The onopordi upperside forewing cell spot is typically strong while that of armoricanus is rather weaker and the forewing basal dusting is usually indicative.

The onopordi shot was on 21 June, strongly indicating a second brood, with the autumn brood being the third brood. I don’t have any books with me but I think Lafranchis says two or three broods, just that I have never seen a June brood before.

[Nigel Kiteley]

These two photos were taken in Miraflores, north west of Madrid on June 19th. I'm not sure if it's Carline or Olive and would appreciate an expert opinion. I'm angling towards Carline partly because of the colouring of the unh.

[Nigel Kiteley]