Haut-Var, July 2015, requests for ID

[Matsukaze]

I spent the first couple of weeks of the month around the Lac de Ste Croix. The weather was too hot for extreme butterflying and difficult enough in easier terrain - either the butterflies would hide away or the heat would speed them up while rendering me less inclined to chase after them. That said, there were plenty of them about.

Can anyone please help with the tricky ones?

Carcharodus - a genus I have difficulty with.

Is the first alceae? Is the plant it is associated with significant?

I think this mating pair (next 2 photos) are flocciferus but would appreciate confirmation.

Butterfly 3 - appalling photo - a Great Sooty Satyr decided to dally nearby and I was rather distracted - but another alceae?

[David M]

To me, your first image looks like Marbled Skipper and the second Tufted Marbled. I may be wrong though, so best to await the majestic Guy Padfield.

[Matsukaze]

Pyrgus - at around 1300m. I think these two (separate individuals) are carthami, having recorded it from the same time and place last year.

Mellicta - same site - refused to co-operate and let me get a photo of the underside, and then disappeared around a shrub. I went after it and promptly got distracted by Silver-studded and Large Blues. Looking for butterflies in this part of the world is like being a child in a sweet-shop.

Blues from the same site - the first Turquoise?

My notes at the time say that the mating pair are not icarus, as there was no cell spot, although the single male hassling them might well have been.

Further down the mountain - Turquoise Blue?

[Matsukaze]

Various blues around and about. There is a group of blues including Common, Chapman's, Escher's, Amanda and Turquoise that I have great trouble in sorting out.

1) Idas?

2) (two photos probably of the same insect)

3) (three photos, the second and third definitely of the same insect, the first probably so)

4) Escher's?

5) another Escher's?

6) and yet another one?

[Roger Gibbons]

Hi Chris,

Your first Carcharodus looks a promising candidate for Southern Marbled (C. baeticus). I can’t see those hindwing markings clearly, so couldn’t be 100%. It looks like it may be on Ballota nigra, which baeticus uses in the PACA region, in addition to Marrubium vulgare.

The other two look like flocciferus and alceae as you suggest.

I think both of your Pyrgus are Safflower (P. carthami) despite them looking rather different.

The “Mellicta” (now Melitaea) looks like Heath (M. athalia).

Blues: the first looks like Common (P. icarus) but hard to say with that degree of wear.

The mating pair and the one following look like Escher’s (P. escheri).

The next looks like Silver-studded (P. argus). 2 = Escher’s, 3= Turquoise (P. dorylas), 4/5/6 = Escher’s.

Roger

[Matsukaze]

Thanks folks - much appreciated - baeticus is proving a bit difficult as that's a couple of potential ones but none yet certain.