Adonis Blue - a recent UK colonist?

[Matsukaze]

Link to research suggesting all British Adonis Blues are descended from one, or a handful of, female butterflies in the eighteenth century:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/8350388k263373t4/

[Padfield]

Very interesting! I have a book at home in England called 'The British Butterflies - Their Origin and Establishment' (Dennis, 1977), which rewrote quite a lot of Ford's speculation in his 'Butterflies'. It's an excellent book and well worth getting but I suspect more recent biochemical methods will mean much of it, in turn, will have to be rewritten!

If the British adonis blues have such a limited genetic origin it might help explain why they are apparently so much more vulnerable and local than their cousins on the continent.

Guy

[eccles]

Have they developed into a separate subspecies?