www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

As if Erebias weren't tricky enough already

The Swiss have generally distinguished bubastis and manto as good species for some years now. I've always been more cautious, though, as I know one site where to all appearances bubastis turns up as an occasional form of manto (females of bubastis have white spots beneath, unlike the yellow of manto). This new data is therefore very interesting. Either I have found a place where both species fly (my site is not shown on the maps of bubastis) or manto can occasionally throw up white-spotted individuals.

These both come from the same site:


(female manto)


(female of what I have been calling form bubastis)

Guy

Thanks for sharing Matsukaze, and also for your insight Guy.

Erebia are my favourite family of European butterflies, and this is a really interesting paper.

Agreed. Thanks for sharing, Chris, even though it's likely to make identification even more complex within this genus.

One thing that struck me when seeing E. manto constans for the first time in the French Pyrenees last summer was just how many had yellow spots on the unhs. These spots varied from just one to an almost complete line.

This group has so many isolated populations that it's unsurprising the degree of variation seen. One wonders just how such variation develops.

A new anomalous blue in Albania:

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... eille_1804

I'm learning new words in my own language reading that, Chris!

The way things are going taxonomically, in 50 years time we'll have double the number of species in Europe!