www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Does this female hippothoe from the Pyrenees qualify as a caerulopunctata, or do they often look like this??



(edit)... on the other hand... Tolman/Lewington has a very similar pic under vigaureae miegii, or possibly montanus.. labelled as male (???) but the latter should be in the Alps.... help!!

Hi Paul - no idea, other than it "may" use the same name as the Small Copper ab.

Guy may know.

Cheers,

- Pete

Sorry - I missed this thread. If you close down the 'new posts' page before you've looked at them all, the ones you missed don't appear again the next day!

ANYWAY, this form is frequent but not the 'norm' - perhaps about the same frequency as caerulopunctata. This is from this year:



This is from last year, with hints of the same:



Both these are rather darker, being presumably from a higher altitude than your female.

I've never seen it on a male, though there are often purple streaks there.

The official names of aberrations can't be used for other species unless someone has officially named that aberration in the other species (there are plenty of lanceolatas around, for example, but you cannot correctly call something lanceolata without going through the rigmarole of being the author of the name). I think that's the case anyway. To read the official rules you have to fork out a lot of money on the ICZN, ever since they got all upset about people breaching copyright by publishing bits of it on the web! I should have downloaded it when I had the chance...

Guy

OK, thanks both of you. The c'punctata was a bit tongue in cheek, main thing I wondered was how often they're seen, so that bit answered! The Collins Guide does appear a bit confusing on the Scarce Copper page, but I'm sure in retrospect this was Purple Edg'd & your photos support this Guy. Many thanks indeed, for the umpteenth time!!

No doubt about the ID. Heodes (in the old money) has an irregular pd row - the spots are in pairs, each pair misaligned with the next. Palaeochrysophanus has a regular pd row. I'm repeating myself now, but this is why I prefer the old generic names. Lumping everything together as Lycaena obscures the natural differences betwen groups, as it does with the now massive Polyommatus.

Guy