Aberration
Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 3:47 pm
Just a thought...
There seems to be a lot of abberant butterflies this year (see the frits on sites page, together with the blues, the comma etc in recent posts). I believe someone (Pete?) told me that some abberations are caused by unusual temperatures during the late pupal stages. Is this odd summer responsible for an increase in numbers of abberant species, or are we on this site just getting better at spotting them? What other factors affect whether a butterfly appears 'normal' or 'unusual' I wonder... Over to the experts.
Trev
There seems to be a lot of abberant butterflies this year (see the frits on sites page, together with the blues, the comma etc in recent posts). I believe someone (Pete?) told me that some abberations are caused by unusual temperatures during the late pupal stages. Is this odd summer responsible for an increase in numbers of abberant species, or are we on this site just getting better at spotting them? What other factors affect whether a butterfly appears 'normal' or 'unusual' I wonder... Over to the experts.
Trev