Insects Of France

In this blog post we are going to tell all about the amazing insects that we’ve come across during our hikes in France. We wanted to do a “Wildlife of France” post but after going through our pictures we realized quickly that we could do several blog posts only about the insects we’ve seen.

Apart from all the reptiles and amphibians we’ve seen the insect are by far the coolest things we come across, there are so many shapes and colors and species and all of them have so many cool features. In Sweden we are used to have just a couple of different wasps and only some bees and bumblebees of course, but here in southern France there are so many. Can’t even keep track of them all, some of the most well known are here are the Giant Woodwasps (Urocerus Gigas). With an impressive size of up to 5cm in body length they sure are giant, however they are a species of sawfly and not an actual wasp. This fact means literally nothing because they are huge and the sting will be just as terrible anyways.

This area is known for its many different species of butterflies. It’s amazing to see all the different varieties of colours and shapes, and also that there are some specialties to this area which are unique. I did read somewhere that there is a butterfly that is not actually a butterfly but looks just like one, the big difference being that it is carnivorous which to me sounds amazing. We never managed to find this information again but it was supposed to be black and white in its colours. We did find a butterfly with those colours but knowing this was a White Marbled Butterfly it was unfortunately not this other one we wanted to find.

Speaking of “look alike” animals, even though we found tons of dragonflies we’ve almost found more Damselflies. They look almost exactly like a dragonfly but their wings are constructed just like the butterflies which gives them the same kind of clumsy flight pattern. When they land their wings also fold up behind their body instead of like dragonflies who have their wings following their bodies or even protruding out from their bodies.

Moths are also something special around these areas, there are bigger and smaller ones some look like hummingbirds when they hover above the flowers and they move their wings so fast you can barely see them. But one we came across was extremely beautiful, and it was not easy to get a picture of either. The Spot Burnet Moth (Zygaena Filipendulae), black with red dots and a elegant flight.

Last but not least we want to highlight an insect which is common in some parts of the world since it has over 2400 different species. It is however less common in Europe and there is very few in south of Germany but becomes more and more common the further south you come. However they are still listed as threatened. We are just going to leave this picture here and you’ll have to figure it out yourself.

A family member started a “Go fund me page” for us which you can find here We are thankful for all the support that we can get to keep going.

Á Bientot!