Phylogeographical analysls was conducted on butterfiies of the genus Erehia in Bulgaria, which oecupies a major position on the Balkan Pcningula. We studied the haplotypes ot' base sequcnces ol' 942 bp in total using ND5 (432 bp) and COI (510 bp) which are eften used for analysis of intraspecific meleeukLr variation. Samples are 6S jndividuals of 1e Erebia species t'rom northern Bu[garia (Western and Cen tral Balkan Mts) and southeni Bulgaria (Rodopi, Pirin and Ri]a Mts), and also 1 1

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... ls ot' 1O species from central Europe main]y Switzerland and eentra[ Asia. A geographica] distance-based iso]ation mechttnism may be functioning for E. aethiops, E. eu ryale, and E, medusa, which arewidelydistributedinEurope,withjustaone-bascsubstitutioninthesequcncebetweenthenorthandsouthpopulations of E, aethi(tps, and the other north-south species being in an cquivalent situation, On the other hand extremely large gcnetic differences betwcen the north and south Bu]garian populatiois of E. tigea and E. oeme have been discovered, This is probab]y a result of reproduetive isolation between the north alld south popu]ations prior to the 1ast glacia! period whieh remains till now. Especially with E. tigea, it may be that two lincages, the European and Asian, are facing cach other in the central Ba[kan Peninsula. Jn addition, in the E. atbetganus and E. pandtvse populations, reproductiye isolution between the Balkan populations and central European populations seems to have continued sincc the age prior to the last glacial stage, sincc the genetie difi'erences bctween them are very large. This suggests that some northern butterfl ies tike these two Erebia species, now di stributed very sporadically, might not have expandcd their distribution and neither mixed each other in the last glaeiat period even on the continenL.