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Polyommatus menelaos

Taygetos Blue

Field Notes

Mt Taygetos, S Greece, June 2002

Lacking underside forewing cell spot.

Mt Taygetos, S Greece, June 2002

This example has clear underside forewing cell spot.

Mt Taygetos, S Greece, June 2002

Mt Taygetos, S Greece, June 2002

Just as happy at flowers as at salt.

Mt Taygetos, S Greece, June 2002

Mt Taygetos, S Greece, June 2002

Group of males taking salts

This is a very special butterfly being found only on Mt Taygetos in southern Greece and nowhere else in the world. It is very distinctive. It has the classic Polyommatus underside patter of spots. The ground colour however is very pale, almost white making the spots look rather small. The male upperside is a stunning shining pale blue.

It flies close to and above the tree line. We found it very commonly at damp springs and at one colonial site. Only the brightly coloured males were taking liquids/ salts. Females were conspicuously rare at the colony. We only found four among several hundred males. I've never worked out why some of the Blues have this extreme male-female imbalance. One advantage may be to force the males to wander, thus spreading the gene pool. However, the chance of finding an un-mated female when he gets to another colony would seem to be equally small!

Of course we may have been too early for the females - they often emerge a few weeks later than males. We didn't think this was likely though.

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