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Small or Pearl Bordered Fritillary? (1 Viewer)

Andy Adcock

Andy Adcock

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Cyprus
I just can't figure this at all, seems to show features that fit both.

Some of the large cells are a perfect fit for PB rather than SPB? The large whitsh cell that sits second from bottom in the vertical row in the hind wing is spot on shape wise for PB but not SPB, at least in Collins. They are however not mentioned as being diagnostic.

I simply can't differentiate the difference in the chevron surround, PB being blunt and SPB well defined (Collins) they all look the same to me and the colour of the post discal spots is hard to tell in this light, help!

SPB is the common one here, PB hasn't been seen here yet at my patch.


Thanks, Andy
 

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It's a female SPB.
Among other characteristics, the chevrons on the unh are black in your photo, they should be rusty-coloured, or even reddish on PB (at least some of them). You can see that on the unh the colours are well separated in "blocks" also thinly bordered black, as in a church stained glass window, which is a character of SPB. The terminal "pearl" on S1 should be white on PB (same colour as the remainder) and is yellowish (as in your photo) on SPB. Also on the unh the red discal "pentagon" on S7 is heavily bordered black here (the distal border), another character of SPB and against PB. Finally, it's the abdomen shape that says female. Hope this helps :)
I've been following your posts on Russian butterflies with great interest (as well as Jos's thread), so keep them coming!
 
Addition to above, the size of that black spot also points to Small Pearl-bordered - tends to be much smaller in Pearl-bordered, at least in my experience.
 
Jos Stratford said:
Addition to above, the size of that black spot also points to Small Pearl-bordered - tends to be much smaller in Pearl-bordered, at least in my experience.
Click to expand...

Thanks Jos and Raphael, very helpful indeed.

Re the size of that spot, from what I have read, I had assumed this was a racial difference in Fenoscandian insects, it's much bigger than on the British ones?

Cheers, Andy
 
RafaelMatias said:
I've been following your posts on Russian butterflies with great interest (as well as Jos's thread), so keep them coming!
Click to expand...

My best pic of recent days if you haven't seen it on surfbirds.

Some are much more approachable than others and I was able to get within 10cm of this Poplar Admiral. Apart from getting close enough, the other problem with this approach is that it's very hard to get an angle that prevents casting a shadow so when you get a nice shot it makes the effort worthwhile!

Very envious of many of Jos's sightings!

Andy
 

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andyadcock said:
My best pic of recent days if you haven't seen it on surfbirds.

Some are much more approachable than others and I was able to get within 10cm of this Poplar Admiral. Apart from getting close enough, the other problem with this approach is that it's very hard to get an angle that prevents casting a shadow so when you get a nice shot it makes the effort worthwhile!

Very envious of many of Jos's sightings!

Andy
Click to expand...

Really nice pic of a mouth-watering species. Unfortunately, in Portugal even White Admiral is a rarity (rare and restricted to a few forests in the north).

Last year I did a sort of Big Butterfly Year here and managed to see 122 out of the 134 species considered to be regular (there are 3 further species that are known from single records). This year I'm on 69 species (taking it slower...) but 2 of those are new from last year. My Portuguese list stands currently at 127 species but I'm making an effort to get the very hard to get last 7... It's a fascinating world that of butterflies!
 
andyadcock said:
Thanks Jos and Raphael, very helpful indeed.

Re the size of that spot, from what I have read, I had assumed this was a racial difference in Fenoscandian insects, it's much bigger than on the British ones?

Cheers, Andy
Click to expand...

I'm not sure that's right: Small Pearl-bordered in Britain can have a spot that practically fills that cell. It is a bit variable and I have seen individuals that have made me look twice.

John
 
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