www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

The dark PL is great I too had a dark one any ideas what causes them to be on the dark side?

Have a goodun

Wurzel


PS are they strong in the force too?

Hi Wurzel - I know that temperature can cause extreme variation in Painted Lady - but no idea whether this example is genetic or environmental.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight AGM and Members' Day
Probably the best AGM and Members' Day I've attended (even if I say so myself, as chairman!) - with two outstanding main presentations. And a well-attended event and great to see so many BC members and UKB members there, including Michael Blencowe's chauffeur (er ... Neil/Kipper ).

Michael presented on "Once Upon a Time in the East - The Butterflies and Moths of Sussex", which exceeded expectations and was absolutely hilarious - a superb combination of information and entertainment ("infotainment"). You had to be there. He should be on telly (and has been!).

Jeremy Thomas gave an insightful talk on "Butterflies, ants and parasitoids" sharing some of the latest thinking on the relationship between Lycaenids (blues, hairstreaks and coppers) and (as the title suggests) ants and parasites. Jeremy covered all aspects of the lifecycle and provided some wonderful insights into the lives of Silver-studded Blue and various Maculinea (M. rebeli, M.alcon, M. nausithous, M. teleius and M. arion) - including the association that each species has with a particular species of ant (and the mechanisms they use to attract ants) and particular species of parasite. Jeremy also touched on some findings regarding Small Blue, Common Blue, Adonis Blue and Chalkhill Blue. Just brilliant.
[Edit] Thanks to Helen Brock for supplying the photos.

Cheers,

- Pete

Doing Some Digging

I've been spending most of my time recently updating the UK Butterflies website. Having updated the phenology charts, the next item on my list is to update the subspecies descriptions. I think that Adrian Riley's British and Irish Butterflies: The Complete Identification, Field and Site Guide to the Species, Subspecies and Forms is superb, but I was keen to see the original subspecies descriptions and started to find them on the Internet. However, in order to really understand a subspecies description, you also need to understand what comprises the nominate form. And so I've also been digging into this also - and this has taken a huge chunk of time; looking at more websites than I care to remember. But there are some great resources out there - the top 3 being:

Google Books - http://books.google.co.uk/
Internet Archive - http://archive.org/index.php
Biodiversity Heritage Library - http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org

Having been through this exercise, when I read a reference such as Esper (1777) it actually means something! In this case, it's a reference to a work that contains the first definition of the Scotch Argus nominate form (Erebia aethiops aethiops); Die Schmetterlinge in Abbildungen nach der Natur mit Beschreibungen (also known as Die europäischen Schmetterlinge) - with the definition at http://www.archive.org/stream/dieschmet ... 2/mode/1up, and a plate at http://www.archive.org/stream/dieschmet ... 8/mode/1up. I've had to brush up on Latin, French and German in the process I'm really amazed at how much good-quality material is out there. Just take a look at the plate above. Or even better, start at the following link and work your way forward; some stunning illustrations: http://www.archive.org/stream/dieschmet ... 0/mode/1up

I'm glad to say that my first pass through all of the species, subspecies and forms on the British list (including the secondary species) is now complete - some references taking over an hour to track down (really!). I've found the vast majority and have linked them into the website, both within the species descriptions, and on a new "References" page (http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/references.php) where you can access links to the individual descriptions and plates within each reference. As ever, all comments welcome. I now need to track down the missing references, locate actual physical copies of those not freely available online, and then I'll finally be in a position to update the subspecies descriptions, making my life complete Until next week, that is.

The reason for posting this in my personal diary is that I do want to revisit my memories of this moment in time at some point. Despite the sheer amount of work involved (it really has been a long hard slog), I've really enjoyed it. Names that I've lived with since my youth, such as Esper, Fabricius, Denis & Schiffermüller, Oberthür, Rottemburg, Verity and, of course, Linnaeus, have all been "brought to life" during my analysis - it's been fascinating just digging into the lives of these luminaries and reading up on the literature they've produced. And this may sound really weird, but I feel I've definitely made a connection with times gone by and have a renewed appreciation of what the collectors of old have done for our understanding of butterfly fauna today. Although we seem to have moved from paintings to photography, and collecting to conservation! I've also got a real sense of where the entomological centres were - not just London, but also in Germany, France, Sweden, Austria and others. To see that the type locality for the Common Blue is Germany says it all!

And if you must know - it took me 1 hour and 45 minutes to track down the original naming of the Indian Red Admiral (Vanessa indica). The main reason for this is that its moniker was inscribed on a plate (not in the text) and most copies of the associated work (Natursystem aller bekannten in- und ausländischen Insekten), credited to Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Herbst (we're on first name terms now), have had their plates sold off (each plate sells for a few hundred ££) and all of the scanned works available online are missing the plates. It turns out that his collaborator, Carl Gustav Jablonsky, was the Lewington of his time (as well as the private secretary to the Queen of Prussia) and his work in high demand! I even ended up trawling around online artshops and eBay! The plate in question can be found at http://gdz-srv1.sub.uni-goettingen.de/c ... 000053.jpg. I also include it here to make this post more colourful Taken from the "Center for Retrospective Digitization, Göttingen" (Seiten des Göttinger Digitalisierungszentrums): http://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/dms/lo ... =PHYS_0001
Cheers,

- Pete

Absolutely amazing work Pete .
This and other recent improvements takes the site into new realms.

Cheers,

Vince

Congratulations on a splendid piece of work, Peter.

I think members of the forums sometimes forget that the answers to many of their questions are already on this website and that there is a wealth of authoritative information at their fingertips, thanks to the work of yourself and a few colleagues.

Mike

What amazing work - thank you Pete.

It's fantastic to have that link to the Esper - I think I will keep going back to that. By coincidence, I have recently been studying that Herbst picture, including indica, as it is reprinted in the latest volume of Butterflies of the Palearctic Region (Nymphalidae V, subfamily Nymphalinae). That book also shows the original Hübner picture of calliroe and an account of the history of the names indica, calliroe and vulcania.

Guy

Eccellente ... Ambassador, with these upgrades, you're really spoiling us.
Great work Pete!
BWs, Neil

Pete said:

I've had to brush up on Latin, French and German in the process

Why not get that polyglot Padfield to help you out?

Brilliant research Pete. Very impressed.

Jack

I never cease to be amazed by the incredible work you produce.

I can only concur with the previous posters' comments.

There surely cannot be a better website devoted to butterflies and those who are interested in them anywhere in cyberspace.

Hats off to you, Pete.

Thanks for the very kind comments all - much appreciated

padfield wrote:By coincidence, I have recently been studying that Herbst picture, including indica, as it is reprinted in the latest volume of Butterflies of the Palearctic Region (Nymphalidae V, subfamily Nymphalinae). That book also shows the original Hübner picture of calliroe and an account of the history of the names indica, calliroe and vulcania.

Thanks Guy. I don't have my copy yet - I normally pay a visit to Pemberley Books so that I can have a chat with Ian at the same time But do look forward to reading up on this!

Cheers,

- Pete

Garden Finches

With the snow falling, the bird feeders in the garden have been getting even more attention today than they normally do - which I didn't think was possible. Greenfinches, Goldfinches and Chaffinches, in particular, a very partial to the sunflower hearts we put out. We had a Fieldfare in the garden today too, although still waiting for a Brambling. We also have a resident Pied Wagtail that has a distinct limp! Photo and video below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MehG87jG ... e=youtu.be[/video]

I've also started updating the aberration descriptions on the species pages - which is going to take a VERY long time! All of the skippers are now done (which is, I estimate, 1/20th of the effort) and we'll start creating albums for those aberrations where we have images, move the images, and get them into the right place on the species pages. The descriptions have come from an unpublished work, although the vast majority of its content is itself paraphrased from the original publications (if not a direct copy), and I'll refine the text once I've gotten access to the original publications myself.

Cheers,

- Pete

What a fantastic film Pete. I had thought my garden feeders here get good trade but not really a patch on yours. But I do get Sparrows galore.

Jack

That film was lovely to watch. Like Jack my bird feeders were very busy yessterday but not as much as yours.

I did have a redwing in the garden yesterday though

Great stuff with the garden birds Pete. I've scanned through the Skipper aberrants and it looks fascinating - but I'm really waiting for the Hedge Brown/Gatekeeper list so that I can feed my obsession Cheers for all of your hard work on this Pete!

Have a goodun

Wurzel

ps looking ahead hope to see you at Bentley Wood this season?

Thanks all!

We'll definitely meet up this year Wurzel! Either Bentley or Portland Bill would be just fine!

As for aberrations, I'm happy to do requests. I'll bump Gatekeeper to the top of this list. Just finished Swallowtail - all 97 abs - and will upload soon!

Any other requests just let me know - I was going to do Purple Emperor soon also

Cheers,

- Pete

Which is the UK species with the fewest abs, Pete?

David M wrote:Which is the UK species with the fewest abs, Pete?

White-letter Hairstreak, with 7 named abs. The most is the Chalkhill Blue, thanks to the ridiculously over-analysed (IMHO!) work of Bright and Leeds (A Monograph of the British Aberrations of the Chalk-hill Blue Butterfly), with 144 pages of aberrations of just this one species! Suffice to say, that will be the last species I'll be doing!

Anyway - I've just changed the way aberration-related information is presented, otherwise the species pages will get ridiculously long for some species:

- The detailed aberration information for each species is now held on a separate page, accessible from the aberration section on the species page, except in the case where an image exists for that aberration. This new page is only available if aberration information or images are available for that species.
- The same page can be accessed from a new "Aberrations" page that is accessible from the "Species" menu. The aberrations page is at: http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/aberrations.php (certain species are "greyed out" if there is no information or images available).
- To keep the administration of species-specific albums in the gallery manageable, an album will only be created for an aberration if a photo is available (otherwise, what's the point?!). Vince and I will create albums as required and move images accordingly. Just post any aberrations into the "Aberrations" album if the appropriate aberration-specific album doesn't yet exist.

Any questions just ask!

Cheers,

- Pete

Pete Eeles wrote:I'll bump Gatekeeper to the top of this list.

Done - and images sorted

http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/aberrati ... s=tithonus

Cheers,

- Pete

Much appreciated Pete, and looking good Cheers!

Have a goodun

Wurzel