Spanish Brown Argus - Aricia cramera
Phylum: Arthropoda - Class: Insecta - Order: Lepidoptera - Family: Lycaenidae
Also known as Southern Brown Argus,the male and female Spanish Brown Argus are very similar and have a typical wingspan of 28mm. In the past this butterfly was treated as merely a subspecies of the Brown Argus Aricia agestis, and some authorities still consider it so.
Distribution
Not found in Britain, the Spanish Brown Argus occurs in The Canary Islands, Spain and Portugal, northern Africa and some of the Balearic Islands.
Lifecycle
The larval foodplants include Common Rock-rose Helianthemum nummularium, Spotted Rock-rose Tuberaria guttata and various other members of the family Cistaceae.
References
This page includes pictures kindly contributed by Rob Petley-Jones.
Studying butterflies and moths...
Excited at the prospect of flyfishing? So are we, and we're pretty sure you would find the Winding River Mystery trilogy of action-packed thrillers gripping reading too. Dead Drift, Dead Cert, and Dead End are Pat O'Reilly's latest river-and-flyfishing based novels, and now they are available in ebook format. Full details on our website here...
Buy each book for just £4.96 on Amazon...
Please Help Us: If you have found this information interesting and useful, please consider helping to keep First Nature online by making a small donation towards the web hosting and internet costs.
Any donations over and above the essential running costs will help support the conservation work of Plantlife, the Rivers Trust and charitable botanic gardens - as do author royalties and publisher proceeds from books by Pat and Sue.