This summer, we saw a wide range of
butterflies of all colours and everywhere, be it “in” and around the house, or
on one of our mountain hikes.
This magnificent speciment, which is of a larger size than the others
(35-40mm), is the Mountain Apollo (Parnassius
apollo). Its white is very surprising and we were lucky that it landed on
some flowers and let us photograph it. We saw a few with different shades
(bodies with more or less dark), and two, more or less coloured (red-orange)
rosettes (circles) on the posterior wings.
It’s one of the species
that is getting rarer and is protected. It can only be found over an altitude
of 1300m as it needs sunshine to fly but also a cool atmosphere to live. The heating up of its environment is pushing it towards the North or higher up the mountains.
It loves the nectar of purple flowers and prefers centaurea, thistle, and scabiosa.
13/08/2012 Près de la Grande Vache - La Sure - Chartreuse
No comments:
Post a Comment