A high altitude Pyrgus, with a late flight period of mid-July and August. Its minimum altitude range is stated by Lafranchis as 1500m, exceptionally as low as 1000m. Its defining upf characteristic is the cell spot which is narrow and shaped like a letter "C" although it may be just markedly externally concave and with a straight internal edge, and may be divided in the centre. This only applies to the male, the female being much more weakly marked and the cell spot, far from being C-shaped, may be almost non-existent. Other species may have a slight externally concave cell spot but not to the same extent as carlinae (e.g. Oberthur's Grizzled Skipper (P. armoricanus) 24703); it is not clear where this C-shape boundary exists.

The uph markings are clear but not strongly contrasted.

The carlinae underside has pale reddish-brown ground colour and the distinguishing features are the discal band which can be quite narrow in s4/5, and the marginal mark on v5 which is rather (but not always) long, regular and with a neat straight-ish internal edge (compared to other Pyrgus).

It is not uncommon across the Alpes, and in 2017 I saw carlinae in a wide variety of locations.

observations

although the markings are rather whiter than the usual pale yellow, they surely indicate carlinae.

a mating pair, the female is above. Very convenient to see the upper surfaces of both sexes together, illustrating the lighter upf markings of the female and the virtually non-existent uph markings. It also shows how unconvincing the upf C-shaped cell spot can be, in the male. As in many instances of the books' references to identifying features (in this case they say that carlinae can be identified by the upf C-shaped cell spot), but quite often they are rather indeterminate, as here. I have a photograph of the underside which, although not 100%, I believe corroborates the identification as carlinae.

the long and tidy rectangular mark on v5 is sufficiently and the absence of any mark in discal s2 point strongly toward carlinae.

this has all of the key features of carlinae and none that offer doubts.