Alpine heath

Coenonympha gardetta

''Coenonympha gardetta'', the Alpine heath, is a butterfly species belonging to the family Nymphalidae. It can be in alpine meadows on heights of 800 to 2,900 from the Massif Central to Albania.
Alpine Heath (Coenonympha gardetta) After I wrote the description about (Darwin's) Alpine Heath, I realized that there was yet no example of C. gardetta present here, so I quickly checked my archives for a finding from the Bergamo region of the Italian Alps two years ago.

Even though the two species seem to be considered as one here, recent literature disagrees.
Further information:
* In German: https://lepiforum.org/wiki/page/Coenonympha_gardetta
* In Italian: https://www.farfalleitalia.it/sito/973/index.php
* In English: http://www.pyrgus.de/Coenonympha_gardetta_en.html

For reference, here's a shot og C. darwiniana
https://www.jungledragon.com/image/170222/coenonympha_darwiniana.html Alpine heath,Coenonympha gardetta,Geotagged,Italy,Summer

Appearance

The length of the forewings is 15–16 mm. Seitz treated it as a subspecies of C. arcana -''satyrion'' Esp. ; a mountain form from the Carpathian Mts., which differs greatly from the nymotype: on the upperside the male is mouse-grey and the female brownish-grey, almost unicolorous; on the underside the white distal band is of even width and bears the very regular row of distinct ocelli exactly in its centre; from about 4000–7000 feet.

Reproduction

Adults are on wing from June to September. There is one generation per year.

Food

The larvae feed on various grasses.

References:

Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.

Taxonomy
KingdomAnimalia
DivisionArthropoda
ClassInsecta
OrderLepidoptera
FamilyNymphalidae
GenusCoenonympha
SpeciesC. gardetta
Photographed in
Italy