Small tortoiseshell variation

[Padfield]

I've mentioned we've been having a dismal summer here in Switzerland, with cold for many weeks now. Yesterday the sun shone and a few (very few) butterflies ventured out, among them some fresh small tortoiseshells. Several of them looked like this:



The ground colour had a different, 'straw' effect in flight and the wing edges looked extremely dark, because the blue studs in them were small. The effect may not look very striking in a picture, but in the flesh the butterflies were distinctly different from the usual, reddish summer insects, with brilliant blue-jewelled edges.

I suspect this is a product of having pupated at unusually low temperatures.

Guy

[geniculata]

hi guy,

looks similar to the one i posted on the site a couple of days ago, which i found down here on the hampshire coast,
felix very kindly gave me the aberration name "flavotesselata" which id assume maybe a temperature driven individual as well.

find attached

gary

[Vince Massimo]

Yep, I got one as well. This one was taken in Crawley, Sussex on 12th June 2007.

Cheers,
Vince

[Padfield]

Very interesting. Thanks for the feedback, both of you.

Guy

[Dave McCormick]

Could the intensity of the orane be for warming up their wings for flight, using the sun? I know if you rear the cats in warm tempretures and they pupate, you can get adults with mostly brown on their wings, they don't need the bright markings for the sun to heat their wings for flight as the temp is warm enough for them not to need that. I suppose something like this caused their wings to appear this straw orange colour?

[Dave McCormick]

Saw a fresh 2nd brood Small Tortoiseshell today, looked very like some of yours, light straw orange colour, wouldn't have thought it anyway unusual if I hadn't seen this topic first.

[Vince Massimo]

Here's one I got yesterday at Southwater Woods, Sussex.

Vince

[Dave McCormick]

Thats a nice on Vince, thanks for posting...thats what I meant the lack of orange like on the one you found happens when temsp are high enough so it might not need the orange to warm up, so some (sometimes all) of the orange can be replaced by the brown with black areas.

[Piers]

thats what I meant the lack of orange like on the one you found happens when temsp are high enough so it might not need the orange to warm up, so some (sometimes all) of the orange can be replaced by the brown with black areas.

Trouble is that cold-shock produces the same aberrations Dave...

[Dave McCormick]

Trouble is that cold-shock produces the same aberrations Dave...

Maybe it was the other way around...actually don't count me, I am not an expert on this, just going by what I know of...I suppose it could be the other way around, darker helps it heat up faster in sun when its colder, just had a thought about apollo butterflies in mountain areas, they have dark spots so they can use them to warm up their wings faster as it may take a while up in those places to do so.

This could also be why the Corscian small tortoiseshell is more reddish than orangy as it lives in a warmer climate and it doesn't need to be dark to warm up.

[Vince Massimo]

While on the subject of Small Tortoiseshell, I would appreciate anyone's thoughts on this one. I have it down as a female and it would be helpful if this could be confirmed because I can then add it to the species album to fill a gap in the listings.

Female? Small Tortoiseshell

Thanks,
Vince

[Vince Massimo]

It seems that my question may have been overlooked in the flurry of new posts at this busy time of year.
Does anybody have any thoughts about this one please

Thanks,
Vince

[Padfield]

Sorry Vince! In fact, I didn't reply because I hoped someone more authoritative might do so first. In my opinion that is a female. My only hesitation would be that the differences in abdomen shape are less marked in small tortoiseshells than in, say, blues, and she is not obviously gravid. But I'd go for female with some confidence.

Guy

EDIT - and that aberration you got at Southwater is amazing. I have a picture of that on my bedroom wall from when I was a child.

[Vince Massimo]

Thanks for that Guy, I trust your judgement.

Glad you like the Southwater aberration, so here is another from the same batch (I took loads )
Where did your aberration photo originate from?

Looking forward to your Purple Emperor hatchings.

Vince

[Padfield]

Vince, I would love to have seen an aberration like that myself, but the picture on my wall was from a book. When I was ten years old I butchered my copy of T.G.Howarth's South's British Butterflies (as opposed to South's British Butterflies, which I obviously wouldn't butcher and of which I still have a pristine first edition), cutting out the pictures and sticking them on my wall.

In 2005 (aged 41) I took a photograph of the wall, just in case my parents sold the house and some philistine painted over it:



Your small tortoiseshell is a little over half way up, on the extreme left of the picture. Unfortunately, the intervening 31 years have discoloured all the pictures that got light from my window.

Guy