A website dedicated to European Butterflies


Contact Me
Matt Rowlings

 

Home
Search-Scientific
Search-English
What's New
Checklist 2012
Flowers & Orchids
Links
Lepidapp
Cameras
Books etc
 
All contents and photographs copyright Matt Rowlings, ©2003-2011.
 
Photos: explicit permission must be obtained from Matt Rowlings for any use of any images from eurobutterflies.com.


           
       RSS Feed

Click here for the option to "subscribe" (it's free) to the eurobutterflies RSS Feed for the latest on what's flying and butterfly related news.

 

Agriades aquilo

Arctic Blue

Field Notes

Previous Next

 

N Norway, June 2010

The only example I found in cold, dark, wet, windy conditions.

 

This butterfly is confined to the extreme north of Europe, in N Norway, N Sweden and N Finland. It is extremely local. It's preferences are for rocky grassy places. I was very lucky in 2010 to find a single roosting specimen in cold dark wet conditions.

This taxon is often considered as a subspecies of the Glandon Blue, A. glandon. The close relationship is clear. On purely geographical isolation of the current distribution speciation is highly likely - but I don't know the origin of this taxon following the last ice age when it and its Alpine cousins from much further south may have survived in the same refuges. The debate is likely to continue!

 

TOP