Saturday 21st July 2012

Large Chequered Skippers The Large Chequered Skipper, Heteropterus morpheus, is a butterfly with a disjointed distribution, occurring in marshy areas across Europe. There is one region where it can still be found in the Netherlands, but it has declined drastically even there since around 2005, and nobody really knows why. I saw it in profusion in a wonderful wetland reserve called De Groote Peel in 2001 and 2003, but it has since then virtually disappeared from there, with just a few records of lone individuals. This year I saw two in a nearby wooded area, but the very limited area in which they could be found was attracting large numbers of butterfly enthusiasts, who despite their love of this rare species, were trampling the vegetation in order to obtain better close-ups.