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Zapater's Ringlet
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Montes
Universales, Spain, August 2003 |
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Montes
Universales, Spain, August 2003
Due to heat
any glimpse of the upperside orange is a treat. |
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Montes
Universales, Spain, August 2003 |
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Montes
Universales, Spain, August 2003
A gust of wind
opened the dead butterfly's wings giving my best view of the upperside.
Note the front
legs of the killer crab spider near the top of the picture. |
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Montes
Universales, Spain, August 2003 |
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A very beautiful species with a superb rich chestnut red on the underside
forewing. The upperside has extremely bright orange markings, quite unlike any
of the other Erebias, even the closely similar E. neoridas. The
orange flashes brilliantly in flight. On landing the butterflies leave their
wings open for about 1 second so the lepidopterist can admire it but cannot get
photos of it. Consequently I only have the merest glimpse of orange on my living
specimens and I've had to rely on a spider and a fortuitous gust of wind to open
the wings of the hapless butterfly above.
zapateri has a very restricted range but fairly widespread where it is
found. Its only home is the Montes Universales range in central Spain. It is
only found above about 1300m above sea level in open forests with grassy areas.
They were never common together and showed a very strong tendency to wander
widely. Forest didn't form any kind of barrier to movement - I followed one for
500m straight through dense forest before giving up the chase. Evidently it
doesn't restrict itself to its breeding ground or to stay in the sunshine or
open areas.
It is the only very dark species flying in August in this area so it is very
easy to spot at the roadside from the car. This way we found sites as far as
40km apart which is probably about as far apart as they get, even when we
weren't looking for it. We found only 1 female so we may have been too early in
the season for them even as we approached mid August.
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