www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Hello,

This is my first time here and I'd appreciate a little help with ID of butterflies. My first love is bird photography but I can't walk past any beautiful butterfly or dragonfly without wanting to capture the image and then identify it.

All shots were taken in the coastal tourist area of the Gambia in December last year.

Number 1 was pointed out by my local guide as a Diadem, but a butterfly guide book showed many with that name and in the short time I could look at it none in the book seemed to match this beauty.

Number 2 was shot another day - is it the same as 1 or different?

Number 3 is similarly unidentified

If anyone can help with naming these creatures I'll be very grateful and would happily offer higher quality images to the database if that would be helpful.

Best wishes,

David

Hi David - and welcome! My thoughts ...

1 & 2 are the Plain Tiger, but the form "alcippoides" ... Danaus chrysippus f. alcippoides. See here for examples: http://www.b-pals.com/butts/spc_photo.p ... ist_id=101

I think the third is Common Dotted Border (Mylothris chloris). See http://fr.filopix.com/hp/?phase=2b&id_p ... _pere=1477

Cheers,

- Pete

Thanks, Pete, quick and as helpful as ever.

David

1 and 2 I'd say were African Monarchs.

3 I can't ID from the book I have here as it only covers SA butterflies and I guess the one you have here doesn't stray that far south. It does however have a common dotted border which I have seen myself in several countries and it doesn't look like that. Much larger than yours looks to be and different colours. Different latin name to what Pete suggested and totally different colours too.

Oh, 'eck, now I'm puzzled. I ran for the Google search after Pete's response and http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vin ... ptiger.htm

certainly seems to match my second shot.

Then a search on African Monarch comes up with:

http://www.wingsoftherainforest.com/thu ... 090345.JPG

although I've just realised that this is a commercial site selling butterflies!

So, now it's not quite so clear. Grateful for any more insight.

The first two undoubtedly show Danaus chrysippus - I would have said form alcippus but I'll happily accept Pete's alcippoides, which I have never heard of!

I'm pretty sure the third is dotted border, Mylothris chloris, as Pete says. This has two extreme forms with intermediates between. The one found in West Africa (chloris) is just like the one in this posting (the female) while that in the east and south (agathina) is quite different, with the classic dotted borders.

Guy

PS - 'African monarch' and 'plain tiger' refer to the same species!

I thought it was just the birding world had one Linnean name and any number of local tags (Oldsquaw and Long-tailed Duck for example) but I fell into the trap, so thanks for the PS, Guy.

The fog has cleared - many thanks.

David

One Linnaean name? We have dozens for each species!! The genera in particular change faster than a politician's opinions.

Guy

I was begining to wonder if African Monarch and Plain Tiger were one and the same as I was struggling to see a way of distinguishing one from the other!