Valais,
Switzerland, July 2009
At last I have found this butterfly in Switzerland. Just a single very
old tired female with a partially broken forewing. I found her on the
ice initially - 5 or 6m high drift that I've never seen here before in
July.
N Italy, June
2003
Female
N Italy, June
2003
One of my all time must see butterflies. It is an extremely rare butterfly of
the southern Swiss and northern Italian Alps. All the books say it's extremely
local and extremely uncommon. I found 8 in 1 hour so I feel particularly pleased
with this. As you can see from the photos above, that included females, 3 in
total.
I'd always doubted if this was truly different from the likes of E. epiphron
and related species. Having found it I am in no doubt. It is very different to a
more experience eye (accepting that all Erebias are superficially similar
and daunting to begin with). Its underside forewing is much redder than similar
species E. melampus, E. epiphron and E. mnestra and it
subtly but noticeably larger in flight than the first of these three species.
The other two weren't present on this day but i expect it is of similar size to
them. The undeniable evidence is the row of spots on the forewing. Particularly
obvious in the females above, the outside edge of the 3 or more usually 4 spots
is in a straight line. The other species have nothing like this.
The habitat was more varied than I'd expected - not grass dominated places with
sparse Larche trees, rather it was a complex undergrowth of brambles various
trees including a lot of Alder and umpteen herbs including Thyme beside the path
which my christi appeared to love. Indeed my first christis caught
my eye as I walked passed both females feeding on the same clump of Thyme.
Larche trees and grass were present on the much steeper rocky slopes above (the
more "classic" christi habitat) and maybe there were hundreds of christi
up there? (though I doubt it!)
There were damp patches near by and these were visited by males occasionally.
When the sun went in, both sexes pretty much stopped flying (as did most other
species) and would settle with wings wide open. The females settled on greenery,
the males on bear earth. The latter were very hard to approach even in these
conditions.
