Apollo (Parnassius apollo)

[Medard]

Seeing the  Appoll for the first time was and remains for me an unforgettable experience, so here is a selection of my favourite Apollo photos as a distraction from the gloom and doom of our current house bound predicament.
Please add your favourite butterfly photos.
https://jamesgibbs6929.zenfolio.com/p18 ... #h91130cd7 Vdeo of the Apollo,Molines-en-Champsaur, Haute Alps.

[petesmith]

Hi Jim,
I don't think anyone could possibly forget their first Apollo sighting! What a magnificent butterfly, and all the more special for inhabiting the most stunning of montane landscapes. I fully understand your love of this species. My first ever sighting was back in 2001 near the Col de Meraillet. I have seen them many times since in SE France and also the Pyrenees, but they never fail to thrill.

The unfortunate individual below had got itself caught up in a spider's web (I have to confess that I interfered on this occasion and released it - it was only my second sighting)

[Catteraxe]

It certainly is a cracking butterfly. My image from 2017

[Nigel Kiteley]

Seeing this amazing species for the first time is without doubt something I will never forget. It was June 2012 and I was in a meadow an hour North West of Madrid with Peter Withers. I was busy photographing a Mazarine Blue when Pete casually said "don't step back there's an Apollo on the thistle behind you". I laughed at such nonsense as Pete was always joking, but when he became more insistent I turned around and to my sheer amazement there she was, a female Apollo with sphargis in place busy nectaring on a thistle. My heart skipped a beat and I was lost for words.

Since then I have encountered Apollos in the French Alps and last year myself and my partner Kasia (UKB member acheronita) discovered a colony in Northern Spain.It is always such a thrill to see this stunning butterfly.

France 2016.

France 2017.

France 2018.

Spain 2019.

Spain 2019.

[Medard]

Keep em coming folk, a birding friend once said to me  "when you get tired of watching Kingfishers your tired of life"  seems to apply to the Apollo as well.

https://jamesgibbs6929.zenfolio.com

[Roger Gibbons]

As Nigel mentioned the Apollo sphragis (the device at the end of the female's abdomen), here is a photo of one, not that I had noticed until several years later:

And by comparison, a Clouded Apollo with a very different sphragis:

And, just to complete the trio, here is a pair of mating Small Apollo, the much yellower female on the right:

Roger

[petesmith]

Great shots Roger. I was just about to hijack Jim's thread by adding a few other "Apollo's" into the mix, but you beat me to it!

Here are a few more shots.

My first ever Clouded Apollo, in the Maritime Alps, photographed on 22nd July 2014, quite a late date for this species:

Small Apollos in the Queyras, in 2012. I count these as my first sightings of this species, but with the benefit of the retrospectoscope, the "Apollos" that I saw flying up and down a yellow saxifrage adorned stream near the Col de la Cayolle in 2011 were almost certainly this species.

And finally, my only experience of False Apollo, back in 2009 on Lesvos. Slightly past its best. I would love to see this species again one day and attempt some better photo's.

Keep them coming folks!

[Roger Gibbons]

A question that has puzzled me for some time: given that everything in nature has a survival value, where does a sphragis fit into that narrative?

Maybe someone knows...

Roger

[Padfield]

A question that has puzzled me for some time: given that everything in nature has a survival value, where does a sphragis fit into that narrative?

If a female is mated more than once, sperm will be in competition for her eggs. A male that blocks off access to other males gives his own sperm sole access to her. Males that cannot do this will on average have less access to eggs, if other males are doing it. Thus, the shphragis is selected for at that level (assuming sphragis formation is genetically governed - which in this case, evidently, it is). Of course, if it were simultaneously disadvantageous to a population as a whole, it would be selected against, but clearly it isn't. The strongest males get to the females first, then prevent the weaker males diluting their super genes.


A sphragis yesterday (OK, in June 2018)



Guy

[Matsukaze]

Synchronised nectaring

Unsynchronised nectaring

The black-tipped antennae always remind me of Essex Skipper. Curiously, given the enormous difference in size between the two species, the antennae are probably about the same length.

[Medard]

A few more to add to the Papilionidae magazine, a question Guy, I may be mistaken but there appears to be a shphragis on both the
Clouded Apollo (Parnassius mnemosyne) and the egg laying Small Apollo (Parnassius phoebus) shown in the pictures, I take it your picture shows a shphragis on an Apollo, does the shphragis on the Clouded Apollo and Small Apollo differ in size shape etc, can you please comment.
Clouded Apollo  photos taken near Llo Pyrenees oriental.
Small Apollo       photos taken Queyras, Hautes-Alpes
Host plant for the  Small Apollo

[David M]

Yes, everyone loves an Apollo (or Clouded Apollo/Small Apollo/False Apollo). Some lovely images on here and I'll add my own mediocre efforts:

Apollo, French Pyrenees, 2017:

Apollo, French Alps, 2017:

[Roger Gibbons]

Guy wrote:

If a female is mated more than once, sperm will be in competition for her eggs. A male that blocks off access to other males gives his own sperm sole access to her. Males that cannot do this will on average have less access to eggs, if other males are doing it. Thus, the shphragis is selected for at that level (assuming sphragis formation is genetically governed - which in this case, evidently, it is). Of course, if it were simultaneously disadvantageous to a population as a whole, it would be selected against, but clearly it isn't. The strongest males get to the females first, then prevent the weaker males diluting their super genes.

Thanks for this explanation, Guy. So it's case of survival of the fittest (although I believe Darwin never actually used this phrase).

This seems to imply that females only ever mate once and maybe this is the case. Or is it only the case where the sphragis is applied? I had just assumed that females were basically egg factories that spent their whole lives laying batch after batch of eggs, and that each batch needed to be fertilized.

Roger

[Padfield]

... a question Guy, I may be mistaken but there appears to be a shphragis on both the
Clouded Apollo (Parnassius mnemosyne) and the egg laying Small Apollo (Parnassius phoebus) shown in the pictures, I take it your picture shows a shphragis on an Apollo, does the shphragis on the Clouded Apollo and Small Apollo differ in size shape etc, can you please comment.

That is indeed a sphragis on the clouded Apollo - and as your picture shows, it is very different from that of the Apollo. The small Apollo sphragis is more similar to Apollo.

There is an interesting (and free) paper on the sphragis here, including pictures:

https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/13097/

It suggests the present forms have evolved as a consequence of males and females constantly competing to outdo each other - the males with ever more elaborate sphragides and the females with ever more elaborate genitalia (to get round the imposed chastity). It also suggests that in the absence of such a mating blocker, the last male actually has more chance of fertilising the eggs.

This seems to imply that females only ever mate once and maybe this is the case. Or is it only the case where the sphragis is applied? I had just assumed that females were basically egg factories that spent their whole lives laying batch after batch of eggs, and that each batch needed to be fertilized.

I've never found a comprehensive answer to this, Roger. As the above article suggests, males prefer their females virgins, and afterwards chaste, but females maximise their descendants by polyandry. I know the females of many, if not most, long-lived species mate several times. I don't know how universally this is true.

Guy

[David M]

Given that it is far rarer, my senses are always more tuned in to spotting Small Apollo.

Here's a male from the French Alps in 2018:

and a female from the same place last year:

thumb_9162_e61ab2e2ff4be8f28bf7cefe0b04250c.jpg (65.61 KiB) Viewed 874 times

[David M]

I suppose the 'poor relation' is the Clouded Apollo. Although I see plenty in the Pyrenees (and in Piedmont last June), it's quite an uncommon beast in the French Alps at the end of June/beginning of July.

Still an impressive butterfly though. Here are two from the French Pyrenees: