Borderline Butterfly Gallery

The Midi Pyrenees region has 200 species of butterflies and 28 species of day-flying moths recorded to date. This represents 75% of the 260 butterfly species recorded in France.

While the French are aware from butterfly monitoring, and particularly that undertaken in the United Kingdom, that butterflies are an excellent indicator of the health of the natural habitat, the existing butterfly records date from the 19th century and the early 20th century and cover only a very partial area.

With many species in decline or under threat, the importance is now understood of having a working tool to help reverse the decline and save threatened species from extinction. Several of the red list of threatened species of European butterflies can be found in the Midi-Pyrenees.

So, under a new initiative, the Conservatoire Regionale des Espaces Naturels (CREN) de Midi-Pyrenees (Groupe Invertebres) in conjunction with Nature Midi-Pyrenees are now working together to produce a regional atlas of butterflies and day-flying moths of the Midi Pyrenees, this will form part of a national scheme to create a national atlas by 2013.

As a member of the Nature Midi Pyrenees CREN working group on butterflies you can contact me if you wish to share your recordings in the Midi-Pyrenees.

Jude Lock

jude.lock@orange.fr

Our gallery of butterflies starts here. All photographs were taken in our immediate local area – the valleys of Luz Saint Sauveur, Bareges, Heas and Gavarnie in the Hautes Pyrenees.