Quercusia quercus
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~30%
The purple hairstreak (Favonius quercus) is a butterfly in the family Lycaenidae distributed throughout much of Europe, North Africa, Anatolia, Caucasia, and Transcaucasia. The larva feeds on Quercus robur, Quercus petraea, Quercus cerris and Quercus ilex.
Z. quercus L. (74 c, d). male above with a blue gloss and narrow black distal border, the female with the basal area of the forewing blue and often the cell of the hindwing bluish. Underside leaden-grey, with a proximally dark-edged white line before the outer third and in the anal area of the hindwing weak yellow spots. ab. obsoleta Tutt are females without any blue gloss; there occur also transitional specimens with the blue reduced (semiobsoleta). ab. pallescens Tutt are males with a pale grey greenish instead of blue gloss. In ab. excessus Tutt the hindmargin of the forewing bears a coppery streak. Courvoisier proposes the name ab. latefasciata... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sierra Nevada National Park | 🇪🇸 Spain | |
| 2 | Cévennes National Park | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 3 | Pyrénées National Park | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 4 | Bavarian Forest National Park | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 5 | Sierra de Guadarrama National Park | 🇪🇸 Spain |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kharkiv | 🇺🇦 Ukraine | |
| 2 | London | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | |
| 3 | Prague | 🇨🇿 Czechia | |
| 4 | Birmingham | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | |
| 5 | Copenhagen | 🇩🇰 Denmark | |
| 6 | Berlin | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 7 | Paris | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 8 | Munich | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 9 | Moscow | 🇷🇺 Russia | |
| 10 | Vienna | 🇦🇹 Austria |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Purple Hairstreak sighting in Sierra de Guadarrama National Park on a given day, based on 10 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 325th most-seen of the 597 insects we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 30%, if each day is a fresh chance.
June to August
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Purple Hairstreak in Sierra de Guadarrama National Park on a given day, against under 5% in September to May, the lowest months. Those are among Sierra de Guadarrama National Park's driest months, with about 35 mm of rain a month against 110 mm in November.
Between 10 am and 1 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Purple Hairstreak sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
5th of 5
Of the 5 parks where we can rate Purple Hairstreak sightings, Sierra de Guadarrama National Park ranks 5th at under 5%. The best odds are in Sierra Nevada National Park (Spain, about 10%), Cévennes National Park (France, about 10%) and Pyrénées National Park (France, about 10%).
Same family: Lycaenidae
The closest relatives of the Purple Hairstreak that you can see in Sierra de Guadarrama National Park (family Lycaenidae, Gossamer-winged Butterflies) are Small Copper (about 30%), Southern Brown Argus (about 20%) and Iberian Sooty Copper (about 20%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Purple Hairstreak is recorded against all the insects logged in Sierra de Guadarrama National Park (10 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
