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Erebia eriphyle

Eriphyle Ringlet

Field Notes

Bern, Switzerland, August 2006

Bern, Switzerland, August 2006

Bern, Switzerland, August 2006

Bern, Switzerland, August 2006

Bern, Switzerland, August 2006

Bern, Switzerland, August 2006

Bern, Switzerland, August 2006

Bern, Switzerland, August 2006

Bern, Switzerland, August 2005

Bern, Switzerland, August 2005

Habitat for the Eriphyle Ringlet. These are damp alpine meadows
relatively poor in flowers.

Valais, Switzerland, August 2003

Valais, Switzerland, August 2003

Is this perhaps the Yellow Spotted Ringlet, Erebia manto? The
orange spots are apparently merged on the hindwing.

This is a fairly tricky species to distinguish from some very similar Erebias, principally melampus, pharte and manto. In melampus the hindwing orange spots are pupilled. In pharte there are no spots in any of the orange areas. In manto there is usually much more orange on the underside hindwing and it is generally bigger but there are some specimens with approximately the right amount of orange. Key to eriphyle is the shape of the underside hindwing spots which are rounded approximately of even size but with the spot in space 4 larger. The underside forewing is orangy from the post discal orange band to the base of the wing. The upperside forewing orange band has 2 black pupils in spaces 4 and 5 and occasionally in space 2 - this is similar to manto but should help separate melampus and pharte.

I found a strong but local colony in southern Austria in early August with perhaps 50 or more individuals in a small grassy valley at about 2000m. These photographs were taken in central Switzerland where we only found a couple of examples. They appeared to be slightly larger than the very common melampus with which it was flying. They appear to be at the end of their season in very early August - a visit in mid July would appear to offer a much better chance of getting this species in Switzerland.

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