Water Ringlet (Erebia pronoe)
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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| 53249_male_Ain_31Aug24 | 53254_male_Ain_31Aug24 | 53240_female_Ain_31Aug24 |
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A rather localised species occurring in the Pyrénées
and the northern French Alps in a band extending from Isère
to Haute-Savoie with small isolated colonies in Ain, Doubs and Jura.
T&L says the flight period is late June to
late September according to altitude. My feeling is that it flies mainly late
July to late August.
As such, it is a species that had eluded me until 2024 and was the final French mainland species I had yet to see, mainly because I was never in the right place at the right time. I had knowledge of a location in Ain, close to the border with Switzerland, which was not a great diversion from our trip from Calais to Var. It was right at the end of August when the pronoe flight season may have been over or nearly over, but a late season may have been to our advantage. In any event, there was no choice regarding dates as the travel plans were determined by other factors. |
However, a shot at the last remaining life-tick in France was not going to be
passed up and we made the trip to this rather unusual location. There were
indeed pronoe flying there, so mission successful in that sense. They
were, as these images attest, very much at the end of the flight period despite
the lateness of the season, but at last I have something to put on a page for
pronoe and a reason to go back there at some other time. Not only were there signs of serious wear, but they also flew non-stop for most of the time over very undulating terrain, making photography even more challenging. It is quite an unspectacular species, even by Erebia standards. The male has a smallish upf red post-discal band only on s4 and s5, maybe extending to s3, with two smallish ocelli. The female has a more extensive band and larger ocelli in s4 and s5 and maybe also in s3 and even s2. This is the nominate form. The form that occurs in the Pyrénées is glottis and in Switzerland a dark form, vergy. |
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ref |
sex |
observations |
alt. m |
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53249 |
M |
a male, what is left of it. |
1520 |
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53254 |
M |
a male, as evidenced by the body shape. |
1520 |
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53240 |
F |
a female, as evidenced by the body shape. |
1520 |
