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Hi,

A number of the fritillaries seen in north eastern Spain this year are giving me a headache. Help in id'ing them would be gratefully received.

Melitaea didyma meridionalis?
The next two are the same butterfly which I think is is a Provencal Fritillary:
I'm pretty sure that these are the same butterfly the photos were taken just over a minute apart. I'm wondering if it could be a Heath Fritillary subspecies celadussa.
I've no idea on this one:
The next two are again the same butterfly. I originally named it as Heath, but now I'm not so sure, possible a False Heath?
Finally these two (not the same butterfly )
Many thanks,
Robin

Again, here is the Swiss vote, not to be taken as definitive. Mellicta in particular can be very difficult.

1. Almost certainly didyma (though I can't actually rule out the much rarer trivia - and yours would be perfect for this)
2 & 3. On those views I couldn't confirm female deione, though I couldn't prove it wrong either. I have one photo of female deione from Spain and the colour scheme, ups and uns, is exactly the same as yours, though the wing shape is different. On balance, I think your photo shows athalia, not deione.
4 & 5. To me that looks very good for male deione.
6. diamina
7 & 8. Also diamina
9. athalia
10. parthenoides

As you can see, my doubts principally concern athalia/deione. The problem is that athalia is extremely variable, sometimes appearing very close to typical deione, plus the fact that I rarely encounter nominate deione (in Switzerland deione is quite a different beast, and easy to identify).

I hope someone will challenge these IDs...

Guy

I agree with your IDs, Guy, but isn't that dejone actually a female, based on the body shape? It certainly looks right in terms of colour and markings for a male dejone, and I would have expected some significant colour contrast between the bands for a female dejone, but there is clearly none here. I have never seen athalia celadussa or Spanish dejone, so I am only working from what I see in France.

Roger

That's amazing, isn't it! The wings are male - but the abdomen does look female. I didn't even look at that (I didn't blow even blow up the picture).

Is it possible it really is a male abdomen and it is curled down in some unnatural way? It is very difficult to believe those wings belong to a female!!

Guy

Guy, Roger, You chaps are amazing. Thanks for the insightful responses.

With No 1 I mean't Melitaea didyma didyma as illustrated in Tolman & Lewington and not meridionalis Is that what you meant Guy?

Robin

I'm not completely sure what the status of meridionalis is (whether form or subspecies) but I understood the Spanish didyma to be this. My doubt was re lesser spotted fritillary, which I think flies (as a local rarity) in the region. Because of the variability of didyma and, to a lesser extent, trivia, the markings are only guides to the species. The most consistently cited markings are the submarginal spots on the underside hindwing, which are triangular in trivia and more rounded in didyma. Definitive, though, is the presence of the discocellular vein (representing the outer boundary of the hindwing cell) in trivia, absent in didyma.

Guy

I incline towards trivia for the first - the submarginal spots are distinctly saggitate. It looks very like the specimens illustrated in Manley and Allcard.

Misha

Meridionalis is the southern form of M. didyma occurring commonly in southern Europe. It is a very common species in southern France. I have looked at my didyma photos from France and none have the sagittate marginal black marks and even the more crescent-shaped ones are still clearly rounded. 2606 does not look like any didyma I have seen. However, trivia does not occur in France and I have never seen it.

Lafranchis refers to the sagittate markings as being the differentiator between trivia and didyma. In northern Spain the trivia subspecies ignasiti (Tolman and Lewington refers to it as ignasti in the plates, clearly an error) flies and the illustrations match 2606 very well. Matt Rowlings’ has a male ignasiti from northern Spain on his trivia web page which matches 2606 almost perfectly.

It is not 100% conclusive but, even in the absence of an underside shot, I think you could say 2606 is trivia with some degree of confidence.

I must go to Spain to try and find this species. Would this be a trivia pursuit?

Roger

I agree - the most sagittate individual I have in my own photos is this:



The points are still clearly rounded.

I wouldn't like to call the rarer species, though, without stronger confirmation. Did anyone get a high quality underside photo of this or another spotted frit on that trip?

Guy

Not that I'm aware of Guy and this is the only shot I got of it.

Robin