Erebia pandrose (Borkhausen, 1788)

Host plants:
The caterpillars feed on various grasses of the alpine meadows.

Habitat:
Erebia pandrose inhabits pastures, stony slopes and dwarf shrub regions from 1600m above sea level up to over 3000m in the Valais. The butterfly is missing in the lower border mountains of Bavaria, but it is a bit more common in the southern Allgäu.

Life cycle:
Erebia pandrose has a two year life cycle. The first hibernation takes place in the first or second instar. In the second winter, the caterpillar is fully-grown and pupates immediately with snow melt. The adults fly thus quite early, depending on weather conditions from late May through August. The eggs do not adhere to the substrate. In mid-October 2006, I found a brown and several green mature caterpillars hibernating under stones in the Engadine in 2500 NN.

Endangerment factors:
Erebia pandrose inhabits only high altitudes and therefore is usually at only little risk.

Remarks:
Erebia pandrose occurs in some high mountains of Europe (eastern Pyrenees, Alps, Carpathians, rare in the Apennines, locally in the Balkans) and is also found from Norway to Mongolia in the Arctic region.