An amazing butterfly of mountainous regions. You would not forget the first time you saw one, and it rightly has iconic status in the Alpes. Its hairiness, body size, wing shape and markings make it appear to be a throwback to prehistoric insects, unrelated to today’s delicate little creatures. However, it glides effortlessly over mountain slopes in a way that transfixes the watcher. Although it is threatened in France and protected in many European countries, I have found it not uncommon in areas such as the Vercors, the Pyrénées and the Alpes-Maritimes.

The markings are very variable, with many different local forms, especially the red spots, and sometimes the underside veins can be clearly yellow (e.g. 25728).

The wings tend to have a waxy appearance when worn, through loss of scales, although the forewing margins are usually devoid of scales even in fresh specimens, but it does not seems to affect its flight. The only other non-Parnassius species that has the same waxy appearance is the Black-veined White (Aporia crataegi).

The female is usually larger, sometimes with a greyish suffusion, and with larger red spots and sometimes additional red spots on the upf post-discal area and the uph near the anal angle. Apollo is superficially very similar to the Small Apollo (P. phoebus) with which it often flies. A brief description of the differences is given on the phoebus page.

The females of all three French Parnassius species have a device at the end of the abdomen to prevent mating when it has already done so, called a sphragis. I believe it to be a waxy substance applied by males after copulation which then hardens. I had believed that I had not seen a female apollo sphragis even though I had a photo of 33242 on this page which clearly showed the sphragis at the end of the abdomen. My thanks to the person who sent me an email to point this out, as I lost the email when my old laptop expired and was unable to thank them.

The Clouded Apollo (P. mnemosyne) sphragis is particularly large; an example can be seen on the mnemosyne page.

A superb video of the life-cycle of apollo has been produced by Filming VarWild and can be viewed on YouTube here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP7SUaG6a8Y

observations

a male, mainly based on body shape and the fact that it is puddling (taking salts). The absence of scale loss suggests that this is a very fresh specimen.

a male, based on the body shape and general shape and size of the black marks, as indicated by the illustrations in T&L.

the unh spots are quite dark red, especially in the basal area, perhaps more noticeable as this was quite a fresh specimen. I'm guessing that it is female based on body size, but the behaviour (sitting on the road) maybe indicates male, although for no convincing reason. It has the unfortunate habit of settling on mountain roads, which does not help its threatened status.