Woodland vs Rock

[Paul]

This was taken in 07 in Drome and I've called it fagi. I know it's almost impossible to tell, but I thought about submitting it to the Secondary Species file... close enough??...



incidentally.. I wondered what the somewhat artifactual lines behind the butterfly were... I think they were part of a Spider's web!!

[Roger Gibbons]

One vote for alcyone, but not a very confident one, as always with these two species. The post-discal line usually has a clear bite out of it in the middle for fagi, whereas alcyone has more of a pronounced bump, so this suggests alcyone. The area around the unf ocellus is usually clear for alcyone, more murky for fagi. I tend to feel alcyone has a "cleaner" feel to it. The mottling may suggest it is a female.

According to Lafranchis, both occur in Drome.

But again, fagi is appreciably larger than alcyone in the flesh and this is quite apparent in the field (of course, you have to have seen quite a few) and looks very large in flight. As Guy mentioned a while ago, it is one of those species easier to differentiate in the field than from a photograph.

[Pete Eeles]

I photographed one of these in Greece this year, and Tristan Lafranchis told me it was impossible to differentiate the 2 species without studying the genitalia. Based on that, I posted the photo on UKB anyway ... even if it is just a Grayling "sp."

BTW - there's just one "Species-Specific Albums" now (I've improved the mechanism to speed up the incorporation of images posted there!).

Cheers,

- Pete

[Paul]

might just stick it in anyway then!. pretend it has the right balls.

[Padfield]

What? You thought you'd get away without my sticking my nose in?

I thought I'd got these two species completely sussed until someone decided that all my Swiss alcyone were actually an entirely different species, genava. In consequence, I have never actually seen alcyone. Roger's opinion should weigh heavier than mine here, because he has intimate experience of both species in that part of the world, but just to upset things, your butterfly looks classic fagi to me!! The width of the white band, which departs from the line of the inner edge and is diffuse on the outer edge, the way the dark touches the eye flat, rather than being neatly eyebrowed... I'm not doing it deliberately, Roger, I promise!! And I totally agree with you, Roger, that the size difference is significant and much more obvious in the field than you might think (assuming genava is the same size as alcyone).

This is fagi, and it's even clearer around the eye than Paul's and has an 'elbow', though not as sharp as Paul's:



I am pretty confident of that one because I examined a whole bunch of dead specimens from the same site, caught by a Spanish collector, and indeed I still have a road casualty from the site in my house. To the best of my knowledge alcyone is not known from the site. Male fagi is relatively easy in the hand because the upperside forewing is obscured by fuscous suffusion towards the apex, but female fagi lacks this. You can also simply measure them.

There are loads of piccies of genava on my website at http://www.guypadfield.com/rockgrayling.html. Although officially indistinguishable, you can see they are quite different. I was hoping alcyone would be similarly different when you got to know it, but maybe this is not the case.

In my opinion, we shouldn't submit pictures to the species galleries that we are not 100% sure of, unless we state this clearly.

Has anyone tried Lafranchis's method of examining the Jullien organs of a living butterfly? Apparently this is quite possible and doesn't harm the butterfly. He didn't show you how to do this, did he, Pete?

Guy

[Pete Eeles]

Has anyone tried Lafranchis's method of examining the Jullien organs of a living butterfly? Apparently this is quite possible and doesn't harm the butterfly. He didn't show you how to do this, did he, Pete?

I should have been clearer! My contact with Tristan was by email - I sent him a few photos and his response was that stated ... so, no, he didn't show my how to get intimate with a Grayling

I'm happy to remove the images from the albums if they're unconfirmed IDs - but would prefer if we had at least 1 image! If you could post your Woodland Grayling, Guy, I'd really appreciate it! My photos are definitely unconfirmed. Should Paul's be removed also? Thx.

Cheers,

- Pete

[Padfield]

I'm very happy to post some, and I know Roger has plenty of confirmed pictures too. It's not for me to decide policy, but I feel a repository of reliable and authoritative information, like UK Butterflies, should at least make clear any doubts as to ID (even if, in this case, the species is quite irrelevant to UK butterflies!!).

All my readily accessible pictures (i.e., processed and filed) are compressed to 500 pixels across, the size I use on my site (and the size of the picture above). Is that OK?

Guy

[Padfield]

In the hand, one of the things the Spanish collector drew to my attention was the chalky whiteness of the upperside hindwing band in fagi:



This certainly contrasts with the beige or cream band in genava, and allegedly with that of alcyone.


(Unfortunately, the forewing covers a lot of the band here, but you get the idea)

Guy

[Pete Eeles]

I'm very happy to post some, and I know Roger has plenty of confirmed pictures too. It's not for me to decide policy, but I feel a repository of reliable and authoritative information, like UK Butterflies, should at least make clear any doubts as to ID (even if, in this case, the species is quite irrelevant to UK butterflies!!).

All my readily accessible pictures (i.e., processed and filed) are compressed to 500 pixels across, the size I use on my site (and the size of the picture above). Is that OK?

Guy

That's fine - thanks Guy!

Cheers,

- Pete

[Padfield]

I've put some uns pics on the site, but not any grotty ups ones or dead butterflies! A confirmed male uns appears as the main picture. Please replace it with a better picture whenever you wish, Pete!

Guy

[Roger Gibbons]

Guy, you may well be right about fagi. Having looked again at the postdiscal line and compared it to my photos that I am reasonably confident are alcyone, the bump in the middle is possibly not as pronounced as it should be for alcyone. However, there is no “bite” out of the middle of this line, sometimes considered to be indicative of fagi. The lighter area around the unf ocellus is possibly not quite clear enough for alcyone, again comparing it to “known” alcyone, although the darker area is not really sufficiently close to the ocellus for fagi. I note that the last example on your genava page has the ocellus touching the surrounding dark area and your example fagi on this UKB page also has a clear area around the ocellus, so I am wondering how reliable, if at all, this feature is (it seemed constant to me from the “known” alcyone specimens - and appears clear from Tolman & Lewington).

I put both species on one page on my site. http://www.butterfliesoffrance.com/html ... lcyone.htm
I have gone into greater detail there, with commentary on each photo indicating the varying degrees of uncertainty. I commented, almost frivolously, that “Life would be much easier if Rock Graylings always sat on rocks and Woodland Graylings stuck to trees.”

Only a view of the upperside can give near to 100% confidence, without resorting to examination of the Jullien organs, which I believe should not be undertaken unless by someone who has been trained how to do this without damage or distress to the butterfly AND needs to know for scientific or conservation reasons as part of an approved BC (or equivalent) programme and not just so they can label it correctly.

And then there is the question as to whether genava is a separate species rather than a subspecies of alcyone…

[Pete Eeles]

I've put some uns pics on the site, but not any grotty ups ones or dead butterflies! A confirmed male uns appears as the main picture. Please replace it with a better picture whenever you wish, Pete!

Guy

That's great - thanks Guy. Good to see the new mechanism works for other moderators

I've deleted my images from the album.

Cheers,

- Pete

[Paul]

I've deleted my one as well.... leave this one to the experts... I'm still going to keep it in a file marked "fagi" though,....
I lost you all somewhere about elbows and eyebrows