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Colias aurorina

Greek Clouded Yellow

Pelopennsos, Greece, June 2002 (m)y

Unusual upperside view.
When feeding they would flick their wings open occasionally.
The video camera caught these moments, sometimes.

Pelopennsos, Greece, June 2002 (m)

Pelopennsos, Greece, June 2002 (m)

Pelopennsos, Greece, June 2002 (m)

Another lucky view of the spectacular mauve red-orange upperside.

Pelopennsos, Greece, June 2002 (m)

Photo is somewhat too green. Note second individual on bottom right.

A species whose European range is confined to Greece. We found it common in the Pelopennsos in June 2002 and at the very end of its flight in week 3 July 2000 further north in the Pindos mountains. It is a spectacular butterfly, somewhat greenish on the underside and a fiery rich red orange on the upperside. This flashing of green and rich red is highly distinctive in the field.

Unlike the more familiar wide ranging strong flying species of Colias (e.g. croceus, hyale, alfacariensis) these were weaker fliers and showed very little tendency to wander far from the colony. They would feed avidly on low growing flowers where they would "hop" from clump to clump by beating their wings but not actually flying. This way I managed the upperside photographs above. Otherwise, like most Colias, any view of the upperside is incredibly rare, if ever seen naturally.

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