www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

I was hunting White Admiral in Chicksands Woods today and a rather unusual Comma caught my eye. It was quite a way into a wall of bramble which made getting very close difficult but I did manage to get some shots of it (massively cropped). Can anyone tell me if this ab has a name? Also, where do you all get the names form, is there a website of abs or something?

Great find!

I think this is ab sagitta-album.

The easiest place to look for abs is here: http://www.britishbutterflyaberrations. ... berrations (that's the link to comma - but see the home page for other species). The following picture of sagitta-album comes from there:


(image from http://www.britishbutterflyaberrations. ... berrations)

The most complete lists of named aberrations and descriptions - most without pictures, though - are found on UK Butterflies. The named abs for comma are here:

https://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/aberrat ... es=c-album

Guy

Great find, Old Wolf! Lovely aberration.

Nice looking specimen. I didn't know that there was an aberration webpage.

Brilliant, thanks for the info Guy Really pleased it has a name as I was well chuffed to see it. Shame I couldn't have got a bit closer to get a better angle. Still, you never know, our paths may cross again.

Nice find OW

On the basis of the information available to me I agree that ab. sagitta-album is the most likely, but I am massively confused because we have similar images on the aberrations page of this website labeled as ab. reichstettensis https://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/aberrat ... es=c-album

It doesn't help that ab. reichstettensis isn't illustrated on the otherwise very helpful British Butterflies Aberrations website, but I suspect that we have mislabeled a number of images. I am the first to admit that I'm absolutely rubbish at identifying aberration types based on descriptions, so would appreciate the help of anyone out there who can manage to sort through the 6 images listed as reichstettensis. Also, does anyone have, or know where to find, a confirmed and unambiguous image of reichstettensis for comparison (which I suspect is a much darker individual than sagitta-album).

Many thanks,
Vince

Following on from this I was lucky enough to find this in Epping Forest on 3rd July

Fabulous! Looks like an excellent example of ab.suffusa..