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The most significant butterfly discovery of the last probably 75 years just happened on the very same day when I visited the Woodland Brown site, see bellow. On that night my fellow mate, Szabolcs Fabian called my on Skype and informed about the incredible discovery of a giant population of False Ringlet (Coenonympha oedippus) in the Hansag area, performed by dr. Andras Ambrus, our good friend, zoological supervisor of the Ferto-Hansag NP. However I have seen the species in several times, I was completely shocked by the excitement. This species is extremely rare around, we have had only one small population near Ocsa, Budapest, which is on the brink of extinction soon, as a result of habitat degradation. We had some old records from the Hansag area, so the discovery wasn't unexpected. In 1908 Marton Holtz, collector of Walter Rotschild collected six specimens near Csorna village, along with Rhyparioides metelkanus, a beautiful moth, discovered also here in Hungary (1855). Later Frigyes Graeser collected False Ringlets again in Hansag between 1933-1936. Also we had single records from areas around Budapest, incl. Romaifurdo, Budaors, Szar, Peszer, etc. This discovery by Andras made a major excitement between all of us, and I was privileged with him when got the invitation to see newly discovered population, which is of course need extreme secrecy as a result of illegal collecting activities.
20 July, 2009

The extraordinary False Ringlet, discovered after 75 years in the Hansag area, NW of Hungary, our second population in the country.

Dr. Andras Ambrus, who discovered the species made a capture-recapture transect and marked about 150 specimens. We estimate the population for about a 1000 specimen large.

The False Ringlet's habitat holds also one of the largest Large Chequered Skipper population I have ever seen, definitely we can talk about thousands. Here a male displaying for a female.

At night we tried to find the legendary Rhyparioides metelkanus. However we failed, still we find some extreme rarities of our fauna, incl. Arenostola phragmititis (Noctuidae)...

and Chariaspilates formosarius (Geometridae).


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