Oeneis nanna (Menetries, 1859).

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.

In the Altai highlands, this Oeneis species flies on dry slopes and Kobresia tundras. This male is photographed in the morning. It sits slanting so that the sun heats its wing the best. Besides, in this posture it is especially cryptic looking like a lichen on the stone.

Range: the mountains of S Siberia, the Prilenskoe Plateau, E Siberia (except for the extreme North), Upper and Middle Priamurye, West Primorye, Mongolia, NE. China. A local species, more common in the eastern range and rare in the west (Altai).

A dry rocky southern slope of a ridge between the headwaters of the Chikty Rivulet, 2700 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. 10th July 1998. O. Kosterin.