www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

I have a couple of blown up photos of wing tips, second of which may be southern small?




I also think I should recognize this catty but I don't.. I think it's a Frit though

It is hard to say whether the upper shot is a Southern Small White from this photo, but the one visible clue suggests not, at least to me. The unf black spot usually has a straight or concave external edge for Southern, so this looks like a Small White to me. I think this is probably a consistent feature. A shot of the upf apical mark would help enormously if you have one. The extent to which the upf apical mark extends along the margin is usually reliable - Southern extends down to vein 3 or 4 and Small only to vein 5 or 6. I think/hope this photo illustrates this point. The distribution of the grey scales on the unh is also a good indicator - for Small the grey scales are mainly below the cell and for Southern, usually even across the unh. There is some clue regarding whether the fw vein 7 is forked, but I have no real experience of this.

The top photo looks to me like Small to me but I'm inclined to agree with you that the lower photo could well be Southern. I would probably want something more conclusive to put it in my life tick list, though.

However, I'm in the UK at the moment and my books are in France, so I'm working from what may be a fallible memory.

I'd be interested in the views on the caterpillar - here is a shot I took last month which looks to be the same thing.

Funny - I replied to an identical post last night but it's disappeared!!

The first white is definitely small white. The fork is definitive when present.

The second is very probably southern small white. The absence of a fork is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for this and the venation and wing shape are generally right. The hind wing scaling is correct for southern small.

This is one from this year:



The caterpillar is spotted fritillary:



Guy

PS - I've never seen a small white without at least a hint of a fork, so in my experience that feature is quite strong in favour of southern small for the secnd picture.

Sorry no ups shots, was a bit flighty and p*%*£d straight off!! The full uns shot is as follows....



hope this helps.... I don't mind what conclusion we get, but I'm sure I must have seen one somewhere!!!

100% mannii - no doubt!

Guy

Thank you Roger & Guy.... now here's two more... from that gorgeous field where "la belle dame du Londre sud" graced me with her presence

This one I think is diamina, but I've included it since I'm not entirely certain it wasn't our target frit!




and this one looks to be both athalia & parthenoides!!!!



Please bear with me all who view this, I'm still learning & find it all enthralling.
PS... sorry about any grammatical errors, certainly the French don't seem to understand my French, you'd think they would be better at their own language, wouldn't you!

If you went around talking about 'la belle dame de Londres du sud' I'm not surprised they had trouble understanding!! Out here they call the Camberwell beauty 'le morio'... And 'la belle dame' is, of course, the painted lady.

The first two pics are indeed aurelia, not diamina (the underside hindwing is the giveaway), and the last two pics are athalia. Apart fom anything else, there are no recent records of parthenoides from that part of the Rhône Valley (a curious and not adequately explained fact that I was discussing with the Swiss recorder just a couple of weeks ago, when he visited me precisely to photograph my local parthenoides).

I take it no one's ill in Swaledale at the moment... I've still got to work this afternoon!

Guy

Here's a rubbish picture of diamina uns from that same site, this year. Look at the lunules inside the submarginal white lunules:



Here's aurelia (two different individuals):




Guy

That's fantastic, a second and less tatty aurelia! I see the difference as you've pointed out.
I'm still on holiday, so the others are still taking the strain until Monday when I'll be back!!

Hi folks,

These ID threads are fascinating, and I must be getting 'the talk' more now as I can actually start to understand what you are on about.
Please can I ask (on behalf of us not so fortunate souls on this site) if you could include the British common names as well as the Latin names, so that we can all follow more closely and perhaps learn something new along the way.

As you are both very clever, and know a great deal more than me, this would be very much appreciated.
Cheers
Denise

Sorry, auralia is Nikerl's and athalia is Heath, diamina is False Heath and parthenoides is Meadow, all among the smaller European Frits and there are others not mentioned above. The Collins guide has them all in, but does not entirely make the differences plain.
It's not about being clever or showing off.. it's what you get used to. Also there are different common names in different countries, but the Latin ones stay the same. I am not much ahead of you, if at all, knowledge wise, I promise. I am just fortunate enough to be able to venture further afield sometimes and enjoy the hobby where you can see 30+ species on a walk!!Fritillaries and Skippers can be devilish to ID, and Guy, Roger and some others here REALLY do know their stuff!!!

Thanks Paul.
I hope to see some of those myself next week in Hungary, and if I'm lucky, get a photo or two.
All these pointers for the tricky species, I'm sure, will come in handy.
(I'm sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you, I just wanted to keep up, and I will endeavour to learn the Latin names.)

Cheers
Denise

Good luck in Hungary, should be brilliant!