de Prunner's Ringlet, Erebia triaria

Erebia triarius

Description:

Mountain butterfly confined to the mountains of the center and south of Europe. It is a small butterfly, dark brown with an orange colour postpostdical band decorated by white-centered black ocella, generally five at the front wings and four at the hindewings. The reverse of the frontwings is the same as the anverse and that of the hindewings is brown without decorations. The female is bigger and not so dark as the male. Occurs in the north of Portugal, in some mountainous areas in north and central Spain (including Sierra de Cuenca, Sierra de Gredos, Sierra de Guadarrama and Cantabrian Mountains), the Pyrenees, the Alps of France, south of Switzerland and Italy and of the Balkans in Croatia, south of Bosnia and Albania. Its elevational range is 400-2,500 m. This is a European endemic species.

Habitat:

Spotted at a pine tree forest at high altitude. Parque Nacional Sierra de Guadarrama

Notes:

Camera Model: NIKON D300. Exposure Time: 1/400 sec.; f/10; ISO Speed Rating: 800. Exposure Bias: 0 EV. Focal Length: 300.0 mm. No Flash

Species ID Suggestions

11 Comments

arlanda 10 years ago

Thanks mcaul6515

mcaul6515 10 years ago

Great series! I really like the first and second shot :D

DanielePralong 10 years ago

Thanks arlanda! Actually, I've just realized that E. aethiops is not reported in Spain. I am still interested by what your expert will say about those missing spots :-)

arlanda 10 years ago

Yes, the altitude is between 1800 and 1850 m.

DanielePralong 10 years ago

Thank you Arlanda. I will be interested by what your local expert says! Do you know the altitude of the spotting? In Switzerland I see E. aethiops up to 1500m.

arlanda 10 years ago

I think they are the same specimen. In this spanish web http://www.asturnatura.com/especie/erebi... , sorry it is in spanish, they say that the species is very polymorph, that the males have 4 or 5 ocella in the upper wing and that the female is clearer. But the dark one of my pic only shows two. This morning I sent the same pictures to a local expert and I am waiting for his answer. Since both were flying together and they are so variable I thought it was only a very dark variant but I am not very sure it could be a different erebia.