Large Chequered Skipper (Heteropterus morpheus)
2023 photographs highlighted in green. Click on any photograph to go to an enlarged picture, or simply scroll down the page.
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| 2787_male_Italy_17Jul06 | 48041_male_Cher_1Jul21 | 99-01_female_Gironde_Jul99 |
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A strange butterfly, even by skipper standards. It has a very unusual underside as can be seen from 2787 and 48041 and a rather drab but rarely-seen upperside (99-01), as it usually settles with its wings closed. |
It has a characteristic bouncing flight, in which it seems to have difficulty getting off the ground, such that it can’t be mistaken in flight for anything else. In France it has a very western distribution where I have seen it near Bordeaux and in the French Pyrénées. It does not fly in the PACA region, or anywhere near, which explains the paucity of photographs on this page. |
| ref | sex |
observations |
alt. m |
| 2787 | M |
a male underside, as indicated by the hair tuft at the end of the abdomen. The photograph was taken in Italy, west of Lake Garda. As it only occurs in a small area in Italy, I was probably fortunate to find it there. |
600 |
| 48041 | M | in the strange year of 2021, travelling south to the Pyrénées, I arranged for a stop in western central France at a known location for morpheus (thank you Dave P). It was clearly right at the start of the flight season as only two males were flying there (as far as I could see) and they were both immaculately fresh and taking salts from the ground at a roadside spot, salts, it would appear donated by humans. So, thank you to those humans for this rare opportunity to see and photograph this bizarre, unique and very appealing butterfly. | 170 |
| 99-01 | F |
the only time I have seen the upperside. |
