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| All contents and photographs copyright Matt Rowlings, ©2003-2008. |
| Photos: explicit permission must be obtained from Matt Rowlings for any use of any images from eurobutterflies.com. |
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Odd Spot Blue
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Pelopennesos, Greece, June 2003 The "Odd Spot" is clearly visible out of line on the underside forewing. |
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Pelopennesos, Greece, June 2003 Male underside. Only a small patch of orange. |
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Pelopennesos, Greece, June 2003 Female |
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Pelopennesos, Greece, June 2003 Male |
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Pelopennesos, Greece, June 2003 |
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Pelopennesos, Greece, June 2003 Female resting
(egg laying?) on the food plant - forming a distinctive spiny cushion. |
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Pelopennesos, Greece, June 2003 Bright blue seen from certain angles. |
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A tiny species of extreme interest. It is only found on 2 mountains in southern Greece where it lives in extremely small colonies. At our colony it was remarkably common. It was confined to a very small area of rocky ground in an otherwise grassy area. Here its foodplant grows, Acantholimon androsaceum, a member of the Thrift family. Its pink flowers can be seen in the background of one of the photographs above. They are so small they must be easily overlooked. Key to finding them must be finding the distinctive food plant. They fly very close to the ground and at a distance of more than a meter or two they disappear completely. Incredible. However, this ability wasn't saving them from carnage of collectors. I've mentioned this under the species Agrodiaetus iphigenia so won't labour it again but over a period of at least 1 week this group of collectors were catching and killing every single endymion they could find. Luckily they are so small but with 3 to 5 collectors on an colony covering an area of just 100 m2 or so I was amazed to find any butterflies at all. At this site I met a French man who lived near by and had a keen interest in all natural history of this area. He had tried to stop this carnage but short of being on the mountain all day every day there was no way this group would leave the butterflies alone. Luckily he had seen females egg laying in the morning so there is some hope. If he is reading this page please get in contact because I'd love to get an update on the colony. Si vous vous rappellez cette historie (ou si non!), m'envoyez un e-mail s'il vous plaît! |