Egea has a southern European distribution and is quite rare in France where it only occurs in the south-eastern corner. By 2007 this was the only one I had seen for certain, although I was reasonably confident that in 2006 I saw a second brood egea, which is darker than the first brood and therefore more likely to be confused with the Comma (P. c-album); it seemed just too pale for c-album, but at the time I preferred to look rather than snap and without a photo there is always doubt. Having seen several very light c-album since, the one I saw in 2006 could easily have been c-album. I did see a second egea for certain in 2009 in the Alpes-Maritimes. I only know of one other sighting of egea, in mid-October 2011 (!) in the same general area of the Alpes-Maritimes; there do not appear to be any other records of sightings anywhere else in France. It does not seem to have particular localities where one might expect to find it, so any sightings are a matter of pure chance.

observations

a first brood egea, which I originally thought was a male, but now believe to be a female based on the lightness of the markings. The curvature of the body maybe also suggests female, but this can be deceptive when viewed from this angle.

the underside of 6619.