Dryad (Minois dryas)
2024 photographs highlighted in yellow. Click on any photograph to go to an enlarged picture, or simply scroll down the page.
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| 31375_male_Isère_22Jul12 | 36463_male_Rhône_23Jul14 | 36454_pair_Rhône_23Jul14 | 34183_female_Dordogne_27Aug13 |
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| 45005_female_Rhône_28Jul17 | 36510_male_Rhône_23Jul14 | 36544_male_Rhône_23Jul14 | 9171_male_Dordogne_14Aug07 |
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| 3253_male_Alpes-Maritimes_27Jul06 | 18916_male_Dordogne_20Aug09 | 41699_male_Rhône_18Jul16 | 44535_female_Alpes-Maritimes_18Jul17 |
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| 44997_female_Rhône_28Jul17 | 8289_female_Vaud, Switzerland_21Jul07 | 31365_pair_Isère_22Jul12 |
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A rather strange and fascinating species. The female is very large and the upperside ground colour is a light chocolate-brown, the female being lighter than the male as with most Satyridae species. There are two large ocelli on the forewing with whitish-blue to blue centres (larger in the female, and visible on both upperside and underside in both sexes), which gives it a rather strange appearance. |
The only species with which it could be confused is the Great Sooty Satyr (Satyrus ferula), where the male is similar, especially the upperside, although the centres of the ferula ocelli are clearly white, and dryas also has an extra small ocellus on the hindwing. Also, the dryas wing shape is rather square and the hindwing is scalloped, quite heavily in the female. The female unh has a clear whitish post-discal band. |
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ref |
sex |
observations |
alt. m |
|
31375 |
M |
a male, showing a rare (on my experience) view of the upperside. |
210 |
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36463 |
M |
a rather worn male, but with very small ocelli. |
180 |
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36454 |
PAIR |
a mating pair, the female below with open wings. |
180 |
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34183 |
F |
a female, taking the last of the sun's rays at the end of the afternoon. The size of the ocelli can be compared with the male in 31375. |
110 |
| 45005 | F | a female, rather pale due to ageing, but very much showing the large blue pupils of the ocelli. | 180 |
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36510 |
M |
a male, a rather pale brown but with a distinctive post-discal line. |
180 |
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36544 |
M |
a male on the left with a nice rich chocolate-brown ground colour. Its companion on the right has no unh ocellus. |
180 |
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9171 |
M |
a rather pale male, the apical unf ocellus being unusually almost the same size as the lower, whereas it is usually much smaller. This photograph just about shows the blue centres to the unf ocelli, and blue scales can just be detected in the small unh ocellus in s2. This was seen in a very westerly location where dryas is in decline. |
70 |
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3253 |
M |
the unf ocellus in s5 is as large as in the one in s2; the illustration in T&L shows the s5 ocellus as smaller. |
1000 |
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18916 |
M |
a male, with forewing folded down. Great camouflage, but not on a pale grey road. |
80 |
| 41699 | M | a male. It was a hot day and this male was rather tenacious in settling on my skin to feast on the perspiration, which made photography very difficult (plus the fact that I am not keen to take shots that are not clearly "in nature"). Having said that, I then hit on the idea of transferring some perspiration to a grass stalk and transferring the rather tame 41699 to the stalk, and - hey presto - a completely natural photograph. | 180 |
| 44535 | F | a female from a much higher altitude than the others on this page. The discal band is very subdued with very little contrast across the discal line. The black submarginal band is also very pronounced. | 1550 |
| 44997 | F | a fairly typical female dryas in my experience, the post-discal band being averagely light. | 180 |
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8289 |
F |
a female, as indicated by the lighter post-discal band and deep scalloping of the hindwing. The unf apical ocellus is rather odd in that the blue centre is not round and it is also displaced externally. |
600 |
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31365 |
PAIR |
a mating pair, the female above. |
210 |
