Speckled Wood colour variation

[Judi]

When we were on holiday in Cornwall we saw lots of Speckled woods, most of them looked to be more chestnut in colour than the ones up here in Yorkshire which are more brown, any thoughts anyone.
thanks

[Pete Eeles]

Hi Judi - from the species page: "The appearance of this butterfly changes from north to south, forming a "cline", where individuals in the north are dark brown with white spots, with those in more southerly locations being dark brown with orange spots. This has given rise to a number of subspecies". See:

http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/species. ... es=aegeria

Cheers,

- Pete

[Padfield]

Cornwall is very close to the imaginary dividing line between ssp. aegeria (the orange subspecies) and ssp. tircis (the brown and cream one, familiar in the UK). There is a sort of half-way form in the Scillies, ssp. insularis. The line runs from NW to SE, roughly from North-Western France through Switzerland (I'm on the cusp) into Italy. In my experience, anywhere near the line you can find intermediate specimens, even in mainland UK.

Guy

[Judi]

no 1. taken in Cornwall, Perranwell, Truro


no 2. taken in the garden, Beverley, East Yorkshire


Thank you very much for your explanations
Judi

[David M]

It can get far more extreme near the Med:

[Chris Jackson]

And possibly as extreme as this (near Marseilles). Or is this a sub-species ?

[David M]

That'd be a perfect mélange of Speckled Wood and Wall Brown were such a thing possible.

[Chris Jackson]

C'est vrai David

[David M]

C'est vrai David

It's not possible, CJ.