Rare Butterfly Species Rediscovered in Morocco After 135-Year Absence

According to the newspaper L’Opinion, "since its discovery in the 19th century, no one has been able to rediscover and describe the Cordovan Blue with precision". Even naturalists with "a sharp and experienced eye, continue to criss-cross the kingdom to observe its fauna and flora, in search of traces of this rare butterfly". Michel Tarrier is an entomologist and author of this rediscovery. He recounts that it is since 1990 that he has been trying "to get his hands on this little jewel in Morocco".

"I had spotted the place for 30 years; but I didn’t stop there, because we naturalists, we first look for exceptional, remote, paradisiacal sites!", says Michel Tarrier from the Tafraout region where he is confined. He says he has identified 25 remarkable species of day butterflies, some very rare, including "the famous Pseudophilotes panoptes". According to the entomologist, author of the book "Paillons au Maroc", the existence of the Cordovan Blue had not only been "forgotten", but "disputed".

Before Michel Tarrier, many other naturalists had set out on the trail of the famous butterfly. This is the case of Abdellatif Hermak, a Moroccan naturalist who had taken a photo of the butterfly in 2019 in the Bouhachem region. But it was the "binomial panoptes and abencerragus" which is difficult to differentiate.

This "fortuitous" rediscovery strengthens Morocco’s biodiversity heritage, and by extension, that of the African continent, emphasizes the entomologist who explains that the edges of highways as well as small rural areas often "host very interesting things".