Dappled White

[NickMorgan]

I wonder if anyone can help me with this Dappled White that I saw near Antequera, southern Spain last week. It seems to be different from any of the other Western Dappled Whites that I saw that week and I am inclined towards a Portuguese Dappled White. The hind wing appears to have a much smoother curve along its costa and the pattern doesn't appear to have yellow areas amongst the patterning as my other pictures of Western Dappled Whites show.
I am afraid I only managed a couple of distant pictures.

[David M]

Difficult to be certain with just the one image, Nick. Roger (Gibbons) is best placed to advise on this one. I know he's constantly on the alert in the Var for this species.

[Roger Gibbons]

Best placed in the sense that I have seen precisely one for sure.

Not being able to see the underside at 90 degrees on, I would say that tagis is quite likely on the basis of the discoidal mark being fused to the costa.

I have no experience of tagis in Spain but I believe it is not uncommon there, as with so many species such as ballus, proto, etc, so it would not be against the odds.

The hindwing curvature is rather variable for crameri and I have seen some with what appear to be smooth curves, only slight angled at the apex. As with many of these clues, it is more true that if it isn't smooth curved, then it isn't tagis, but the converse is not always reliably true.

There will be other UKBers with more experience of Spanish tagis than me.

The last time I revisited the site where I saw the original tagis, there were some strange artifacts that looked like witchcraft - not quite Blair Witch - but near enough to suggest not hanging around to find out. I may have put photos of them up on UKB.

Roger

[petesmith]

Nick, this is quite a challenging ID.
I have some experience of both tagis and crameri in southern Spain, primarily in the Hoya de Baza, on a small number of occasions.
I would agree with David that it is not easy to confirm on the basis of just one photo - do you have any other shots of this insect?
As Roger says, it would be useful to see the underside from a 90 degree perspective.

My comments would be as follows:

As Roger mentions, the discoidal mark being fused to the costa is suggestive of tagis, but the discoidal mark doesn't taper away as in most examples of tagis that I have seen, it being more like most examples of crameri, in my limited experience.

The hindwing curvature looks very suggestive of tagis, but the angle that the photograph was taken at makes this less than 100% conclusive.

Another distinguishing feature is the clarity and definition of the white marks on the unds hindwing, particularly how the white markings stand out from the green (black/yellow) areas. In my experience, crameri shows a cleaner definition between these areas, with "whiter" white patches (and usually larger) distinctly separated from the "green" areas, whereas in tagis, the definition between white and "green" areas is more blurry, less defined, and the white areas themselves are less bright and clear. In this matter, your photo is about half way between the two!

In the wild, in the Hoya de Baza, I actually found that the size of the butterflies when viewed on the wing was the most reliable indicator of ID. Portuguese Dappled White, flying in the company of Western Dappled and Green-striped, was easily identified due to its significantly smaller size. The wingspan of tagis in this part of Spain is consistently about 2/3 the wingspan of crameri, making it very easy to differentiate.

Below are two photo's taken in the Hoya de Baza of tagis and crameri.

I would be reluctant to stake my (non-existent!) reputation on a definitive ID for your specimen, but I would go 60% crameri, 40%tagis.

Here are my shots:

tagis

crameri

[Padfield]

I don't know if this will help, but here is part of Nick's photo rotated then stretched, to reconstruct a 90° view. This trick sometimes helps to get a feel of a butterfly's wingshape, though its accuracy depends on the original wing being in a flat plane, which they rarely are, of course:



I, too, was looking for tagis near Antequera this month, but the few individuals that stopped were all crameri.

Guy

[NickMorgan]

Thank you Roger and Pete,
I am afraid that the only other picture I have of this butterfly is an even worse angle!
I wish I had paid more attention now. Earlier in the holiday I had seen a lot of Bath Whites down by the river near where I was staying. A couple of days later, I had seen a lot of what I assume are Western Dappled Whites only a few hundred metres from that spot. I found it interesting that in such close proximity these two butterflies appeared to have their own separate territories and weren't found together.
This butterfly was seen a few days later and a few kilometres further north in the hills near Antequera. I was actually more interested in the Green-striped Whites there, so wasn't bothering to photograph many of the Dappled Whites I saw.
What I have noticed is that the Western Dappled Whites I saw near Alora would appear to match the second brood illustrated in Tolman. Possibly the butterfly in question that I saw near Antequera was a first brood individual.
It was the colour of the underwing that caught my eye (when later reviewing my pictures). Those near Alora had white areas, yellow areas and yellow/black areas, whereas the one from Antequera didn't appear to have any yellow areas.
Maybe it will remain a frustrating unresolved ID!!

[NickMorgan]

I don't know if this will help, but here is part of Nick's photo rotated then stretched, to reconstruct a 90° view. This trick sometimes helps to get a feel of a butterfly's wingshape, though its accuracy depends on the original wing being in a flat plane, which they rarely are, of course:

I, too, was looking for tagis near Antequera this month, but the few individuals that stopped were all crameri.

Guy

Thank you for doing this Guy. I missed your post until today. I think you must have posted it when I was writing my post!