4TH INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM
LANCASTER UNIVERSITY
SEPTEMBER 5-8TH 2002

ABSTRACTS
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Butterfly Conservation, 4th International Symposium, 5-8 September 2002: Abstracts

PAPERS

THE BUTTERFLY FAUNA OF CENTRAL ARIÈGE, FRANCE, SINCE THE
1920S
David Corke
Tye Green House, Wimbish, Saffron Walden, GB-Essex, CB10 2XE

Fassnidge (1926) and Nabokoff (1931) studied the butterfly fauna of two adjacent
Ariège communes during the late 1920s. They recorded 103 species. Recent surveys have refound all these, either in the two communes or very close by. Carterocephalus
palaemon and Araschnia levana have colonised the area since the 1920s: a southward extension of range that appears to be due to an increase in open woodland habitats
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Butterfly Conservation, 4th International Symposium, 5-8 September 2002: Abstracts

following partial abandonment of farming. Over recent decades, abandonment of
some farmland, and continuation of traditional farming elsewhere (combined with
more intensive searching for localised species), has resulted in a very diverse known
butterfly fauna in Ariège: 167 species [author.s unpublished data: the latest published
list gives 164 spp (Delmas & Maechler, 1999)]. In the last few years, farming
methods have started to intensify (despite the local economy being mainly reliant on
green tourism). This diverse fauna is now in danger.

Delmas, S. & Maechler, J. 1999 Lepidoptera Rhopalocera Catalogue permanent de
l.entomofaune fascicule 2 1-97
Fassnidge, W. 1926 A month.s collecting in the Pyrenees. Entomologists Record &
Journal of Variation 38: 49-52, 107-108