SW-Germany (2): Lycaenids

In fact none of these Lycaenids was high on my wish list to see on this trip but still I could  scrap along a nice list of species.

Satyrium acaciae
This species has recently been seen again in the extreme southern tip of Belgium but is still very rare. In Germany I found it in the Moselle valley and on the Hunsrück.

Satyrium spini

A species with until this year only a handful of old sightings in Belgium. This year however it has been found on one location in the Viroin valley. In Germany it was very common in the Moselle valley.

Lycaena hippothoe

In Belgium this species is not uncommon in the high Ardennes in humid valleys & on the big bog areas. I was pleasantly surprised to find this species common near Aachen on a dry grassland (about 250m high). Both pictures are from that location but I saw the species in a humid river valley in the Eifel and in the bogs of the Black Forest as well.

Phengaris arion

A species that doesn't have any populations in Belgium anymore although the rare strangler from norther France is seen every few years. It was very common on some nice calcareous grasslands in the Swäbische Alb, maybe not yet on the wing in the Eifel when I passed there.

Pseudophilotes baton

This species was present in Belgium in the past in the Gaume as wel as in the Famenne region but has disappeared with the last sighting in 1971. I found it on one marvelous grassland in the Swäbische Alb.

Plebejus optilete

The second of 4 typical bog species I saw. This species is unknown from Belgium although the Belgian bogs are in between the populations in the north of the Netherlands and the populations in the Black Forest and the larval foodplant Vaccinium is widely present. I saw this species at the same location of Colias palaeno.