Dewy Ringlet

Erebia pandrose

Switzerland, June 2007

Switzerland, July 2008

Switzerland, June 2005

This very characteristic ringlet is easy to identify. It has a pathetic, pointless, bouncy, aimless flight and yet hardly ever stops and almost invariably gets up again if it does stop just before you can get a picture. In flight, the silver-grey underside is visible and contributes to the quite unmistakeable jizz. Before you get the flight pattern mastered you could perhaps mistake the butterfly for one of the brassy ringlets, which also have grey undersides, but the whole package is pretty distinctive once you know it.

The dewy ringlet flies at high altitudes in the Alps. It is also found in the Pyrenees but is replaced in many places there by the false dewy ringlet.