Carcharodus lavatherae

Marbled Skipper (Carcharodus lavatherae)

2024 photographs highlighted in yellow. Click on any photograph to go to an enlarged picture, or simply scroll down the page.


5331_male_Var_14May07	24838_male_Var_17May11	24886_male_Var_17May11	29805_male_Var_10Jun12

41305_male_Isère_11Jul16	35490_male_Var_19Jun14	48193_male_Hautes-Pyrénées_7Jul21	49223_male_Var_27May22

52069_male_Var_21May24	52854_male_Isère_8Jul24	5868_female_Var_27May07	46358_male_Hautes-Pyrénées_10Jul19

51429_male_Hautes-Pyrénées_10Jul23	25124_male_Var_24May11	34826_female_Var_24May14

Lavatherae is quite lightly coloured with extensive white marks on the uph, especially in the discal series, but also a series of slightly sagittate white submarginal marks. Lavatherae appears very light, almost white, in flight, in part due to the very pale and unmarked underside, a clear indicator of lavatherae.

Despite the similarity in name, lavatherae has little in common with the Tufted Marbled Skipper (C. flocciferus). The differences between the two species are outlined on the flocciferus page.

Lavatherae is almost unmistakable from the upperside, but the definitive upf identifier is the two small semi-transparent patches in the post-discal region. I have found lavatherae to be widespread but not particularly common in Var and beyond in Provence, often encountered but nearly always in ones and twos.

That is, until 2019, when a trip to the Pyrénées produced over 50 (I stopped counting) in a 100m lakeside stretch. In some spots they congregated in numbers to take salts from the ground (see 46358 above).

ref	sex	observations	alt. m
5331	M	showing the extensive white uph markings.	185
24838	M	*a male in a typical territorial pose, ready to see off intruders. This behaviour is typical of lavatherae* males.**	20
24886	M	the abdominal hair tuft is not as pronounced as other males, leading me to wonder if it might be a female.	20
35490	M	a fresh, typical male.	780
48193	M	another male from the Hautes-Pyrénées, rather darker and greyer than those from the south-east of France.	1700
49223	M	a male, a soft brown colour, in typical pose.	220
52069	M	a fairly typical male from var in southern France, with a darker ground colour and strongly contrasted white marks.	220
52854	M	a rather unusually pale and grey specimen from Isère, further north in the Alpes than the Hautes-Alpes.	1230
29805	M	a very fresh male.	220
41305	M	a male taking salts. The ground colour is quite dark, producing a strong contrast with the white marks.	1120
5868	F	slightly paler and less strongly marked in the uph marginal region.	780
46358	M	having said that I normally encounter lavatherae in ones and twos in Var, in July 2019 I was in the Hautes-Pyrénées where I counted some sixty or more males puddling in a short riverside stretch. The photograph shows a concentrated gathering of fourteen.	1700
51429	M	a male underside with a slightly creamy-white colouration in the basal area.	1600
25124	M	*a less common pose, with wings closed. This illustrates why lavatherae* appears almost white in flight. It is a species that is easier to identify in the field.**	185
34826	F	not a great photograph, but a rare view of the female underside. It appears, from what little can be seen of the abdomen, to be in the process of egg-laying on the larval hostplant Stachys recta (Perennial Yellow Woundwort).	220