Small Tortoiseshell ab - ID please

[Art Frames]

A lovely butterfly spotted at Fermyn Wood, Northants today.

Would love to be able to put a name to it. I have tried to find a similar var to help with ID, but not had any luck. Any help welcomed.



(I have several other shots and an underside if that helps)

many thanks

Peter

[Jack Harrison]

Lovely butterfly. My guess is caused by heat stress as larva or pupa or most likely during pupation itself.
A Comma recently shown on ukb was a parallel aberration.

Jack

[bugboy]

Try here

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/data/b ... at=gallery

Or here

http://www.britishbutterflyaberrations. ... berrations

[Allan.W.]

Great find Peter ,
If not on Bugboys suggestion ….try BRITISH BUTTERFLY ABBERATIONS web page ,several similar on there.
Regards Allan.W.

[Art Frames]

Thank you Jack, Bugboy and Allan for taking a look and giving those helpful inputs.

I had tried a number of online sources before asking but had reached no confident conclusion. British Butterfly Aberrations was my first point of call, and I was disappointed not to see something just like it. A friend who saw it with me looked through his Edwardian book of aberrations and drew a blank too.

To me it looks similar to many, but different, and I don't know which differences matter most. The red/orange colour on the hindwing was very strong and that combined with the forewing pattern may be significant but I have no experience to draw on and I was just hoping that an expert would see it and just 'know'

[bugboy]

The thing with abs, and particularly environmentally induced ones, they're never all gonna look the same by the very nature of what causes them. With temperature controlled ones such as yours the period of time it's exposed will effect the degree of pattern change. If someone were to do an experiment, artificially controlling to time of exposure, I'm sure they could come up with a hundred examples from normal to the extreme form you have with every variation between the two extremes. The question is when does it stop being normal and when does the ab start? Just like separating different closely related species from each other whilst speciation is going on, it's just humans trying to put barriers up around fluid genetic motion.

That became a lot more long winded than I intended when I started but I hope you get my drift.....

[Jack Harrison]

E.B.Ford in his classic Butterflies (1945) covers temperature experiments with Tortoiseshells including some good illustrations.

Today, 73 years later, it's a worthwhile book. I found a (well used and loved) copy for £5 quite recently as a supplement to my own even more used copy that was my own first butterfly book circa 1946.

Jack

[Art Frames]

thanks again everyone.

I have Ford and have skimmed through that section, thanks Jack.

I have also just read Pete Eeles paper on Dispar. So I am feeling a little more informed ...and yet confused.

I had assumed that variation was genetic and that the various vars were distinct and repeatable. With the addition of environmental causes how do you know what is a genetic and what is an environmental one?

And what now troubles me is what is the point of naming any of the variations on the websites? If variations are infinitely varied then this seems to be neither logical nor scientific.

[MikeOxon]

As you have found, Peter, variations are a continuum and also are not necessarily genetic. Many are described as 'pathological', meaning they are due to disease of some sort.

Naming aberrations became a Victorian passion and the entomologist J.W.Tutt named loads of them; many of his names overlap with others and there are no 'definitive' versions.

Remember, as someone else pointed out, that all this 'naming' is a purely human invention. Speciation is a human invention, too, and hence there are frequent changes in the groupings over time. DNA analysis has added a new twist to all this, and shown that morphological features are often a poor guide to the way evolution has progressed.

In summary, evolution is a continuum, where all the boundaries are human inventions. They are a convenience, helping us to describe and understand the living world

[Art Frames]

Thanks Mike.

I started out looking for a name because it was such a lovely creature I will stop at this point finding out more which might lessen the feelings of delight and wonder.

Unless I am corrected I shall go with ab.nigricaria which has similar groupings of forewing markings. That will be fine.

[Padfield]

The wood where things have no names, from Alice Through the Looking Glass:

Just then a Fawn came wandering by: it looked at Alice with its large gentle eyes, but didn't seem at all frightened. `Here then! Here then!' Alice said, as she held out her hand and tried to stroke it; but it only started back a little, and then stood looking at her again.

`What do you call yourself?' the Fawn said at last. Such a soft sweet voice it had!

`I wish I knew!' thought poor Alice. She answered, rather sadly, `Nothing, just now.'

`Think again,' it said: `that won't do.'

Alice thought, but nothing came of it. `Please, would you tell me what YOU call yourself?' she said timidly. `I think that might help a little.'

`I'll tell you, if you'll move a little further on,' the Fawn said. `I can't remember here.'

So they walked on together though the wood, Alice with her arms clasped lovingly round the soft neck of the Fawn, till they came out into another open field, and here the Fawn gave a sudden bound into the air, and shook itself free from Alice's arms. `I'm a Fawn!' it cried out in a voice of delight, `and, dear me! you're a human child!' A sudden look of alarm came into its beautiful brown eyes, and in another moment it had darted away at full speed.

Guy

[Jack Harrison]

I first read the "Alice" stories as an eight-year old (or thereabouts). I got a lot out of them at the time.
Howeveer, a year or so ago, by now a senior citizen, I read them on my Kindle. There was now a totally different take on things - a more in-depth interpretation.

"Alice" is recommended for all the oldies on ukb. And much easier than the likes of Shakespeare or Dickens.
Beano comics are even easier still

I digress here slightly. I once had a girlfriend who's father was embarrassed to admit that his job was wriitng the "Boofs", "Whizzes", "Bofs", "Bangs", etc for the speech balloons in kids' comics. Daughter was a respectable Air Force Officer!
Too bloody respectable if my memory serves me right

Jack