| Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria (Linnaeus, 1758)) |
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Scientific name: Pararge aegeria (Linnaeus, 1758) Common name: Speckled Wood French name: Tircis Order: Lepidoptera Suborder: Rhopalocera Family: Nymphalidae Subfamily: Satyrinae Wingspan: 38-44 mm Biotope: Common in shaded woodlands, woodland edges, clearings, hedgerows and bushes. Geographic area: Europe, missing in North of Scandinavia and North of Scotland. North Africa and Atlantic island of Madeira. Flight time: March to October. Number of generations : 2 or more. Caterpillar: The body is yellowish green. There is a dark green, thinly white-bordered dorsal stripe all along the body. There is a longitudinal whitish line on each side. The tail is short, pale and forked. The head is bluish green and not angular. Host plant: Various graminid. |
The Speckled Wood's wings are brown with yellow spots (Pararge aegeria tircis). The subspecies living in south-western Europe (Pararge aegeria aegeria) shows a more orange colour. There is an eye-spot on the upper side of the fore wing and three eye-spots on the upper side of the hindwing. The underside of the wings is marbled brown and yellow. You can often see two males, fighting for their territory by quickly circling round each other. Speckled Woods over winter as a chrysalis but exceptionally as a caterpillar. |
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The Speckled Woods flying in my garden belong to the Pararge aegeria tircis subspecies. They are dark brown. This is the most common butterfly in my garden. |
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This Speckled Wood is here landed, with wide open wings, on an ivy flower in my garden. |
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Here is a picture of the Pararge aegeria aegeria subspecies that we can see in the south of France. It is more an orange colour. |
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You can observe Speckled Woods rather late in the season. As the days go by, plants where they land are changing. |
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This Speckled Wood is here landed on Strawberry leaf. The fact that there are so many of this butterfly allows me to test many camera settings (thanks to digital photography) and many approach methods. As, at this date, I only have 55mm lenses I need to get close to the minimum focus distance (28cm). |
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I was missing the side view picture. No problem, the flight period of Speckled Wood is very long. |
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These Speckled Woods were not prisoners in this old spider web. They have simply landed here to have a comfortable place for mating. |
André Bon April 2017