Lycaena helle from N.E. France

[wollastoni]

My friend Jeff has pictured the rare and splendid Lycaena helle in N.E. France.
It is maybe the rarest Lycaenidae from France and I have personally never had the chance to see it.

Ladies first, the female :




And the male :


Thank you Jeff for letting me share those fantastic pictures on the forum.
You can follow Jeff on facebook under the name "Jeff Ramdam".
He regularly posts some nice butterfly pictures.

Have any of you met Lycaena helle and where ?

[nomad]

Very nice images and a splendid Lycaena.

[timmsyrj]

Beautiful photo's, this is one I've been trying to get eggs/larvae of for quite a while as I have loads of polygonia bistorta ( though I think the taxonomists have also changed the species name of this).
Olivier, 20 years ago I spent a week in the georgeous Jura mountains, near St.Claude if memory serves, behind the chalet we'd hired ( me and the ex.) was a large wooded area , right upto the back of the property making the kitchen very dark, through the trees though I could see clearings so I explored and came out in a rather boggy field, the first thing I spotted was a female of these, the place was alive with them, easily over 100 adults it was an amazing and very rare site, I found another colony about 10 miles from these, no where near the numbers but I managed to find eggs and reared a few specimens. That's the only time I've seen this beauty in the wild, it's also the first time I saw the apollo near a tiny village, I think it was called septmoncel or something like this, there was probably 20 or so on the wing flying in fields on each side of the road, in the woods around St Claude was Lopinga achine and Limenitis populi the later drinking from melted Tarmac, also the only time I've seen Apatura iris and ilia together and Anthocharis cardamines and Boloria euphrosyne flying in July.
Amazing place, always wanted to get back there.

Rich

[wollastoni]

Lycaena helle, Limenitis populi, Lopinga achine, Apatura ilia and Parnassius apollo !!!

WOW I need to rent this chalet !!!

[Adam Cotton]

Superb photos. Thanks for sharing them here. It is a pity that most Lycaenids are so small, as some of the tiny ones are really exquisite. Just imagine how fantastic they would be if they were several inches across.

Adam.

[deliasfanatic]

What beauties - especially the female. I'm glad I've taken a dabbling interest in Lycaenidae these past few months - I've missed out on so much by ignoring them for decades.

[timmsyrj]

Olivier, all these were within 10 miles of the chalet, which was at around 1,000 m altitude, I was more amazed to see A.cardamines and P.apollo flying along the same roadside, but I guess at this altitude there is no spring and summer, St Claude was quite a big lower altitude, the road down was steep and twisty, we stopped to look at a fabulous waterfall into the gorge at the side of the road, there we saw the first of many A.iris gliding around about 10m below us in the valley, the purple was amazing on it.

Adam, large lycaenids, several inches across are called "morpho's" lol..

Rich

[timmsyrj]

Olivier, I'd just like to add that this was my first ever collecting trip outside the U.K, one week in the Jura in a ski Chalet, half a mile from a ski jump, my they look ridiculous when there's no snow around and a toboggan run, just two winding concrete block walls and the second week was spent in Chamonix, what a contrast that was, anywhere flat there is built on, bloody high cable car though, aiguille d'midi can't recall the height around 12,000ft if memory serves me right, with Mont Blanc right next door towering above you, most of that week was spent through the Mont Blanc tunnel into Italy, Val ferret which runs parallel to the Chamonix valley had only a few barns and loads of butterflies, several erebia, fritillaries, apollo, and lycaenids everywhere.

I can honestly say my first trip into France ( and Italy) spoilt me and I never collected in the U.K again, aside for obtaining wild stock for breeding, been back several times and I love the place, the only place I found that bettered the Jura week was the col d'vars at around 1400 to 1600 metres, around 60 species over three days, alive!

Rich

[wollastoni]

I have a chalet not far from Chamonix, in Les Carroz (20 mn from Chamonix) at 1500m, and it is indeed a great pleasure to collect there during summer.
I have collected only once in the Jura, when I was a kid, and it is there that I have seen my first Parnassius apollo. I was about 10 year old but I still remember this day as if it was yesterday !

[timmsyrj]

It was 20 years ago and I can still remember the sight of all those L.helle and the purple on that A.iris as though it was yesterday too, when ever I look through my self caught collection I can still remember capturing most of them, for me they take me back to that little clearing, roadside verge or alpine meadow better than any photograph I could have taken.
Unfortunately I've not had the opportunity to get back to France, or anywhere for that matter, collecting for a few years now, I have a fabulous (in my opinion) saltwater reef tank that i am very reluctant to leave for a week or more whilst I go off collecting so I stay home and but tropical specimens. I think though by the time I'm 50 (a little over 2 years) I'll be selling the marine system and getting back to visiting France again, always wanted to see the Millau bridge as I once collected in those gorges before it was built, getting around must be much easier nowadays.
Maybe one day we'll meet up Olivier somewhere in those gorgeous Alps..

Rich

[wollastoni]

It would be a pleasure, Rich !

[wollastoni]

A mating pair of the rare Lycaena helle in Auvergne (Central France), 3rd June 2015.


Pictured by my friend Cindy Marby

[timmsyrj]

Gorgeous little butterfly, can anyone obtain ova from a colony nearby ?

Rich

[wolf]

These are from Norway! I've been looking for these 3 years straight now, and it seems third time is a lucky charm!



Btw has someone here experience in breeding these? I collected a female but she did not lay eggs for 3 days, so i went to the spot again and released it and got a new one today. Any tips on how to get her to lay eggs? I put her in a small cup with Bistorta vivipara, which is the hostplant here. I'll see the upcoming days if she lays eggs or not!

[wollastoni]

Wow splendid wolf !!! Congrats !
They seem "blacker" than our French populations, when you compare with the pictures of the first post.

Please let us know if you find a way to breed them.