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A slightly odd looking small tortoiseshell was seen in Longwell Green this afternoon near Siston Brook. The yellows were bleached white. It was small, very skittish, and quite aggressive towards any other flying insect, making me think it was probably a male. I spent about twenty minutes chasing it but eventually it settled for long enough to get some good shots. Two other individuals were also seen with one large specimen, hopefully a female. There's lots of young nettle around too so fingers crossed for a re-emergent population in my local spot.
Anywya, getting back to this one, I couldn't find it in the Cockayne collection. Any ideas anyone?

Is it not just faded through age? That's what I'd have thought at least.

AH

Although butterflies lose scales over their lifetime, the ones they retain don't exactly fade. In any case, I don't think this is such a case as despite some marks, the actual colouration is still quite good apart from the lack of yellow. I still think this is an aberration.
Here's a shot I took of a similarly worn individual from the same spot about half an hour before. You can see the pale areas are completely different, i.e. the normal yellow colouration.

I don't know if this is a named aberration but I think it is reasonably common - maybe particularly after hibernation? Camberwell beauties show a similar discolouration from yellow to white after hibernating. But in small tortoiseshells it is certainly not universal. Here are a few similar post-hibernation individuals I've photographed:





I've also had them looking richer-coloured after hibernation, like your next picture. This one is from this February:


And this is a high summer individual:



Guy

Hi all
I too saw a rather "bleached" Small Tortoiseshell here yesterday, with the usual yellow areas of its wings looking quite whitish.
Regards
Deano

Being pigmentary in origin, the yellows and reds on a small tortoiseshell are much more susceptible to fading than the blue areas which are structural. Comparing the red with the examples on the species page, I'd say that it too looks somewhat faded, and I would speculate that the yellow has just faded faster.

Looking through my own pictures, 3/4 of the post-hibernation individuals were white, but I don't have many ST pics so it doesn't say much!

Hi Eccles
Thanks for showing your observations. I bought A.S.Harmer's book "Variations in British Butterflies" last year, and you have encouraged me to get it off the shelf and actually read it.
A brief look at the drawings (plates) does not show your ST as a known ab. in this book! I shall read on.

Thanks for the comments, all.
@m_galathea, you've almost convinced me...

I have just seen my first Tortie of the year (in the garden). It took had white rather than pale yellow patches.

No photos. Cat showed too much interest and chased it away.

Jack

I've had my eyes open since you first posted, Eccles, and white is definitely the norm here at the moment. Very few individuals show any yellow. My small tortoiseshells will have lived through a colder winter than yours - below -12 degrees C for weeks at a time - so there could be a temperature effect. But it sounds from others as though white is pretty common in the UK too. I must say, I'd never consciously thought about this. Something to be aware of in future.

Guy

Perhaps the white colour this year is as a result of our cold winter (as per your comments Guy). So maybe in our "normal" winters, the colour would have remained straw coloured.

I can see some deep-freeze / fridge experiments coming up.

Jack

The first individual I saw this year was definitely more bleached-out than usual.
First pic is washed-out individual and second one is the next day - a perfect, pristine individual! May be it is something to do with hibernation or pupation environment that provides some slight natural variation of colouration?
N

Would being out of the sun for the winter months cause this lighter colour or the tempreture? A lot of hibernating butterflies tend to hibernate in dark areas and in old buildings and because its been a colder spring than last year, would that have an affect? First butterfly I recorded last year was around this start of March and this year it was on the 18th March, little later than last, so it has been a bit colder, plus the freak snow we had also points to it being colder than last year.

I know a certain tempreture can cause less orange in small tortoiseshells as in I think, higher tempretures they don't need so bright colours and you get abs like ab. semi-ichnusoides.

Hello there,
Just joined the forum yesterday, Regards being 'unusual but associated with post hibernation fading'... I would have to disagree. This specimen was photographed at Chambers' Farm woods on 21st July 2008, whilst out there to see the white admirals. This must be 1-2 generations into the year, clearly not post hibernation, and yet exhibits the white areas and a complete absence of yellow. I would therefore suggest THIS specimen is clearly an aberration from the norm.

Cheers,

Aron Bowers

Hey Pete, I know you love your Aberrations, so is this SPB, ( hope I'm right ) a Aberration.

Gruditch

Nice one! It certainly is an ab., but isn't one of those in the Cockayne database:

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/jdsml/research-cur ... ame=selene

Nice find!

Cheers,

- Pete

May still be there on Monday,


Gruditch

Beauty!

Guy

Corr Blimey! Very nice. Great find.
Neil

Cool Gary, I like the uppserside of that PBF, nice find!