Swiss Brassy Ringlet
(Erebia tyndarus)
2022 photographs highlighted in blue. Click on any photograph to go to an enlarged picture, or simply scroll down the page.
Technically perhaps no longer a butterfly of France, although there are historical records of tyndarus occurring in the French Alpes, and Lafranchis includes it in his recent French work. These specimens were seen in Switzerland, where it seemed quite common. Perhaps, given its name, this is not too much of a surprise. |
Although not really captured in these photographs (maybe apart from 23071), tyndarus has a noticeable brassy sheen on the forewing often visible in flight. The upf red post-discal band is very wide in s4 and s5 but narrows sharply below that. The two ocelli (and it has been known with one or no ocelli) are quite small and the s4 ocellus is usually much smaller and displaced externally, almost pushing at the edge of the band. |
ref | sex |
observations |
alt. m |
23071 | M |
a male, with quite large ocelli almost in line with each other. The brassy sheen shows up quite nicely here. |
2200 |
22883 | M |
a male, with an unusually wide red upf post-discal band extending from s2 to s6. |
2150 |
22936 | M |
a male, illustrating the variability of tyndarus. The shape of the red upf post-discal band is not that untypical. |
2150 |
13098 | F |
a female, based on body shape, lighter brown ground colour and larger, redder, upf post-discal band, nicely broken up by the veins. |
1800 |
13095 | M |
a male, as indicated by the darker and strongly contrasting bands. It really is quite a hairy little beast. |
1800 |
13029 | F |
a female, quite a good match for the illustration in T&L, and the visible body shape rather helpfully confirms this. |
1700 |
23071_male_Valais, Switzerland_24Jul10
22883_male_Valais, Switzerland_22Jul10
22936_male_Valais, Switzerland_22Jul10
13098_female_Valais, Switzerland_17Jul08
13095_male_Valais, Switzerland_17Jul08
13029_female_Valais, Switzerland_16Jul08