Oeneis norna (Thunberg, 1791) - Norse Grayling.

Oeneis is a large genus inhabiting mostly polar and mountain tundras, alpine meadows and screes, forest-tundras, some species inhabit taiga or peat-moss bogs, only few of them penetrate into the steppes. There are an immense number of hardly differing taxa of a problematic rank and range. Some of them seem to be parthenogenetic, that can partly explain ambiquity of species limits in these very cases. The males of Oeneis exhibit the most expressed territorial behaviour among Satyrids and have a very swift and impetous flight. They occupy any noticeable objects disturbing their even habitats.

This South Siberian subspecies altaica Elwes, 1899 (which sometimes is considered as a separate species,) inhabits alpine meadows, i.e. open habitats, and seems to keep to its perches less strictly. Nevertheless, it does searches for well noticeable perches. Now a male leave a perch being a stone in a bed of a small stream to feed on an inflorescence of Lagotis integrifolia.

An alpine meadow in the valley of the left headwater of the Chikty Rivulet, 2600 m above sea level, the southern principle slope of the Yuzhno-Chuiskii mountain range, the upper Dzhazator River basin, Kosh-Agach District, Altai Republic, West SIberia, Russia. 9th July 1998. O. Kosterin.

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