The male upperside is a resplendent bright coppery-red very similar to the Scarce Copper (L. virgaureae), although dispar has small and narrow but distinct black discal marks on both the upf and uph. Virgaureae sometimes has very faint marks in these positions, but is usually a butterfly of the mountains - Lafranchis says minimum 500m altitude but exceptionally can be lower - whereas dispar has an altitude range of 0-400m, so it is hard to imagine where they could geographically overlap. However, I have it on good authority that dispar flies at 800m altitude in Puy-de-Dôme.

The female upperside has the “typical” female copper pattern on the upf and is rather larger than the male.

It is a wetland species unlike most of its Lycaena cousins.

Prior to 2010 I had only seen dispar on a few occasions in the département of Dordogne. In 2010 I visited a site in the Rhône département where dispar was flying, the females being freshly emerged and the males showing slight signs of wear.

I subsequently learned in October that the field in which they had been flying had been mowed. Whether this is a regular feature and whether this has been undertaken a the wrong time of year, I do not know. Reports from this site in 2023 showed that dispar had survived and, to some extent, thrived at this site. Welcome news indeed.

The images from 2024 were from a private site (not the same site as the 2010 images, despite the altitude being the same) where we were granted access in order to search for and survey dispar. 53174 was the only female seen there, with  only a few males on the wing, so it may have been at the start of the flight period.

observations

a male, showing slight signs of wear, but still fiery orange.

a female, quite typical in my limited experience.

a female, quite lightly marked in comparison to 20314.

a female, nice contrast between the orange and grey.