A website dedicated to European Butterflies

Photos: explicit permission must be obtained from Matt Rowlings for any use of any images from eurobutterflies.com.

Click here for the option to "subscribe" (it's free) to the eurobutterflies RSS Feed for the latest on what's flying and butterfly related news.

Lycaena thersamon

Lesser Fiery Copper

Field Notes

NW, Greece, August 2008

Macedonia, Greece, May 2004 (m)

Macedonia, Greece, July 2004 (f)

Macedonia, Greece, May 2004 (f)

Rila Mts, Bulgaria, July 2004

Macedonia, Greece, May 2004

Rila Mts, Bulgaria, July 2004

Cyprus, April 2002 (m)

Patmos, Greece, June 2002

Cyprus, April 2002 (f)

Cyprus, April 2002

Female

Cyprus, April 2002 (m)

Male resting on the larval food plant.

Peleponnesos, Greece, June 2002 (m)

A truly spectacular species with bright copper uppersides and bright orange underside forewings. It is found in SE Europe but also in central parts of Italy. It is also found on most of the Greek islands where many of my sightings originate. Infact I've only found it on the European mainland once, in northern Greece, which is surprising considering it flies throughout the summer.

I even found it on the tiny isle of Patmos from where Alain Olivier's guide to the butterflies of the Greek Island (1993) reports just 7 species. I found 6 of these plus another 7 different species including thersamon. It just goes to show what a few years of observation and the increasing awareness of butterflies can do as all these species have subsequently been reported from here. Annoyingly though, the missing 7^th butterfly from the original list is the one we went to find, Plebejus loewii, which is only found from a few of the eastern Greek islands in political Europe.

The larvae feed on a species of Knot Grass (Polygonum aviculare) which has a distinctive straggly form. The low plant forms a kind of mat with its long wiry green stalks from which sprout only a few small leaves. Each plant may be a meter or more in diameter.

TOP