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Provence Hairstreak
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Var,
France, April 2004 |
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Agadir,
Morocco, March 2001 |
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Var, France,
April 2006 |
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Var, France,
April 2006 |
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Var, France,
April 2006 |
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Var, France,
April 2006 |
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Var, France,
April 2006 |
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Var, France,
April 2006 |
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Agadir,
Morocco, March 2001 |
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Var,
France, April 2004 |
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Agadir,
Morocco, March 2001
Taking juice
from a damaged cactus. |
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BELOW: Butterfly
cleaning right hand antenna with central leg.
Agadir,
Morocco, March 2001 |

Resting |

Reaching antenna with middle leg |

Bending head round to hook over antenna |

Cleaning started |

Stretching head and leg to reach tip |

Stretching futher |

Nearly there |

Moments before antenna released |
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This is
a rather striking butterfly with bright orange and green underside
colours. It flies in north Africa, Spain and a small part of southern
France. It flies very early in the year, one of the first on the wing. I
searched for it at a site in France the last weekend of March in 2003 -
in 2 hours of hot sun the only butterfly I saw was a Green Veined White.
Two weeks later ballus was flying strongly. I found two areas of rough
ground and relatively bare ground within 200m of each other which held
colonies but I found none in between. This suggested the colonies were
distinct and very small, with low (if any) interchange of individuals.
In Morocco it appeared to be more widespread but still local although
there was nothing to suggest its colonies were as small as those found
in France. I
found an interesting 30 second video showing a butterfly cleaning one of
its antennae with a leg. This is illustrated in the scheme of
photographs moving right to left above. I don't see this very often. I'm
not actually sure if I've ever seen it before although I think I may
have done in moths in the England. |
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