It's almost a month since I last posted some tropical butterflies from my Borneo trip so, perhaps, a few more will help ward off the winter blues!
![Cethosia_hypsea-1.jpg (120.05 KiB) Viewed 741 times Cethosia hypsea - Malayan Lacewing<br />Danum Valley, Sabah - 9th October 2015<br />Olympus E-M5 with 12-50 mm lens - 1/250s@f/7.1 ISO500](./files/thumb_11310_af08a8717f7a6255fe020898172ef1d6)
- Cethosia hypsea - Malayan Lacewing
Danum Valley, Sabah - 9th October 2015
Olympus E-M5 with 12-50 mm lens - 1/250s@f/7.1 ISO500
I've been spending quite a lot of time sorting all my photos and making some PowerPoint shows to inflict on family and friends. I've also been learning how insular my approach to butterflies has been, limiting myself to a mere 58 or so British species - all of which are fairly readily distinguishable from one another.
In Borneo there are, apparently, 625 species within the Kinabalu National Park alone and, as I examined my photos, I soon came to realise that many of those similar-looking yellows, browns, etc. were, in fact, different species. Again, while 'common' names might be adequate for our tiny British list, it is quite an achievement to get identification of these tropical butterflies down to the Generic level, while pinpointing a species from a photograph alone may just not be possible.
The publication date of the forthcoming Borneo guidebook has been pushed back to next February, so I have been turning to other sources of information. As an example of the 'paper chase' involved, see the following photo, which has some resemblance to our Gatekeeper, suggesting that I started by looking at the 'Browns' (
Satyrinae)
![Mycalesis_marginata-1.jpg (107.9 KiB) Viewed 741 times Mycalesis marginata <br />Kinabalu NP, Sabah - 27th September 2015<br />Olympus E-M5 with 40-150 mm lens - 1/640s@f/8 ISO640](./files/thumb_11310_ea0745eba868c619ed3cca88e6fb5e28)
- Mycalesis marginata
Kinabalu NP, Sabah - 27th September 2015
Olympus E-M5 with 40-150 mm lens - 1/640s@f/8 ISO640
My little guide to the Butterflies of Peninsula Malaysia has photos of several potential candidates called 'Bush-Browns', in the genus
Mycalesis, but it only shows underside views. So I put 'Mycalesis Borneo' into Google images and scanned through until I saw a likely image in a blog, labelled
'Mycalesis marginata ?' (a species not in my book). I narrowed my image search to this species and one of the images shown was a plate from an old book with the intriguing title 'RHOPALOCERA EXOTICA' by H Grose Smith & W F Kirby (1887-1892).
Next, I turned to that treasure trove of 'out of copyright' books: the
Internet Archive, from where I could download all three volumes and read a detailed species description, which seemed to fit very well. Later, I found that I also had some photos of the underside of the same species, taken on a different day:
![Mycalesis_marginata-2.jpg (122.6 KiB) Viewed 741 times Mycalesis marginata <br />Kinabalu NP, Sabah - 28th September 2015<br />Olympus E-M5 with 40-150 mm lens - 1/500s@f/8 ISO640](./files/thumb_11310_f81b5ff81a8d96e00c5d9d5e3e21c250)
- Mycalesis marginata
Kinabalu NP, Sabah - 28th September 2015
Olympus E-M5 with 40-150 mm lens - 1/500s@f/8 ISO640
The pattern of eyespots on the underside matches the description in the above book. This search took most of an afternoon and I have 242 butterfly photos to work through, so it might take a little time
I have photographed several large yellow Swallowtails and had thought, at the time, that they were all the same but they are not! To finish this post with some nice bright colours, here are examples of the three species involved:
![Troides_amphrysus-4.jpg (76.65 KiB) Viewed 741 times Troides amphrysus<br />Poring, Sabah - 29th September 2015<br />Olympus E-M5 with 40-150 mm lens - 1/400s@f/6.3 ISO1000](./files/thumb_11310_076b4d3a6be49047b1fed6d62ea92f18)
- Troides amphrysus
Poring, Sabah - 29th September 2015
Olympus E-M5 with 40-150 mm lens - 1/400s@f/6.3 ISO1000
![Troides_andromache-4.jpg (129.44 KiB) Viewed 741 times Troides andromache<br />Kinabalu NP, Sabah - 27th September 2015<br />Olympus E-M5 with 40-150 mm lens - 1/1250s@f/6.3 ISO640](./files/thumb_11310_e536a869efcb533085e6ef9754d6a0a4)
- Troides andromache
Kinabalu NP, Sabah - 27th September 2015
Olympus E-M5 with 40-150 mm lens - 1/1250s@f/6.3 ISO640
![Troides_helena-1.jpg (82.27 KiB) Viewed 741 times Troides helena<br />Poring, Sabah - 29th September 2015<br />Olympus E-M5 with 12-50 mm lens - 1/160s@f/8 ISO1000](./files/thumb_11310_c85f55846ae05a581d88e8bb23cf2670)
- Troides helena
Poring, Sabah - 29th September 2015
Olympus E-M5 with 12-50 mm lens - 1/160s@f/8 ISO1000
Mike