PJ, your first pic, P cresphontes, is in fact a newly described species Heraclides rumiko (Shiraiwa & Grishin, 2014). The genus Heraclides having previously been split from Papilio (but many seem to want to "lump" the two genera and just keep it as Papilio). Cresphontes and rumiko are ...

"I stuck a pin through a Silver washed Fritillary I caught in Great Yarmouth in 1947. I wiped out the species there and then as the SW Frit did not return to East Anglia for some 60 years. As an eight year old in 1947 I should have known better. It has been on my conscience ever since." Ja...

Gruditch, I guess you didn't bother to actually read the article then ? Do you prefer to remain in ignorance of the need to collect butterflies ? Essexbuzzard, there are many reasons why "common species of butterfly can have pins stuck in them". Distribution, taxonomy, phylogeny etc etc, a...

Gruditch, thank you for your helpful contribution to this thread. Did you actually bother to read the linked article ?

"Why we still collect butterflies"
By Andrew Warren
Senior Collections Manager at McGuire Center for Lepidoptera & Biodiversity at Florida Museum of Natural History at University of Florida.
http://theconversation.com/why-we-still ... lies-41485

As MikeOxon suggested some butterflies do actually fluoresce under UV light. I know that some Eurema species show this and that some species of Australian Hesperids are more easily identified by examining the male sex brands under UV light. Here's just one paper on the subject : FLUORESCENCE IN THE ...

The only handicap is if males and females can find each other this spring, That's the million dollar question of course. However when you consider its amazing expansion of range on the continent .... Here is an English translation of a paper documenting its recent expansion in Europe : http://www.p...

I am a collector. Do I not have a place in society ? If you are collecting Lepidoptera from the wild for recreational purposes, then the answer to your question, is no. Gruditch, I started collecting butterflies when I was around 7 years old. over 50 years ago. I bred my first butterflies when I wa...

Gruditch wrote:
It, and they have no place in society.

Regards Gruditch

I am a collector. Do I not have a place in society ?

Maybe everyone should actually read the article mentioned in the very first post in this thread :
Entomological Collections - Their Historic Importance and Relevance in the 21st Century by Mark Colvin
http://www.dispar.org/reference.php?id=92

David M wrote: but collectors kill butterflies for purely cosmetic reasons

They do ?

Butterfly Conservations' Facebook Page reports a sighting of a Scarce Tortoiseshell disturbed from hibernation at Hempnall, Norfolk on 11 September. https://www.facebook.com/savebutterflie ... =1&theater

Your D nysa pic had me puzzling too. It's certainly nothing like the Australian subspecies of nysa. Only problem was I have no literature on New Caledonian butterflies. So off to Google it was. I found these pics of the New Caledonian D nysa here : http://www.endemia.nc/faune/fiche2656.html nysa cal...

Nick, there have been a few scientific papers that some butterflies have been shifting their range northwards (in the Northern Hemisphere)during the past 20 years or so, due to climate change. Here's a link to an abstract of one such paper : http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v399/n6736/pdf/399579...

The first blue is almost certainly Theclinesthes onycha onycha (Cycad Blue). The fact that it seems to be sitting on a Cycad or Macrozamia Palm, its larval foodplant, is the decider.
Regards,
David Hall
Sydney, Australia