www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

I am forever enchanted by the subtle differences in shade of blue our Lycaenids produce.... so partly to show it off, and partly as a little challenge, here are a few of my 2011 photos cropped similarly though not to scale ( 'scuse the bad pun) - ID these then! :-

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 There are no prizes, just kudos - some are easier than others - dates but no places

15 16 17 18 19 20

My favourite group!

I'll kick off with:

1 baton
2
3 alexis
4 orbitula
5 arion
6 escheri
7 semiargus
8 nicias???
9 optilete
10 idas
11 glandon
12
13 thersites
14 bellargus

I'm confident of some, much less of others and not brave enough to hazard a guess yet for 2 and 12!

Guy

EDIT - Did you just change the order of the last two, to confuse us, Rev! I had thersites and bellargus the other way round a minute ago!

Reverdin wrote:our Lycaenids

How far does 'our' stretch? I don't think these are all UK Butterflies are they?

Mike

Guy - 8/12 right, not telling you which though you did get the two I thought were trickiest.... and 3 you mentioned aren't among those I put up, 1 of which I'm pretty sure you know I would shed blood to see - oh, and yes I did shake up the order... hahahaha.... had a bit of difficulty putting it together!
The 2 you didn't try are eminently gettable from the dates and surrounding photos
Sorry Mike,they were taken in the South of France, Haute Savoie and Switzerland, only 2 in the UK, and I guess you know which 2.... and icarus is not there!!

Six more added above.. poor quality, but good enough for this! Oh and therefore consider everything I said above to be irrelevant for these.... the clues are there

Good game!

I'll loook at these again tomorrow in the airport and on the plane and see if I add to the input I hope others will have given by then. Tonight's my last night in England so it won't be at home in front of the computer!!

Guy

Common, Large & Adonis are the only three I'd feel confident about. If Guy can't get 12/12, I doubt anybody can.

Oh go on.... have a go when you're bored, get the Tolman out and see what you think... it doesn't matter, and not even Guy should be able to ID things by poorly photographed and differently developed bits of forewing alone.... I didn't mean it to be easy! There are now 20 photos, all different.

Can we have a rough location too?

This is fun even though I have barely seen most of them.

01. baton (orion)
02. iolas?
03. alexis
04. pirithous???
05. arion
06. alcetas???
07. semiargus
08. damon?
09. optilete?
10. idas?
11. glandon
12. amandus
13. thersites?
14. bellargus
15. argus??
16. escheri?
17. dorylas?
18. eros?
19. boeticus???
20. dorylas??

I know I have dorylas up twice, but maybe at least one is a hit...

Hi JKT and thanks for trying....11/20 and one dorylas was a hit - 8/ first 14 answers you shared correctly with Guy that means 3 are yours alone.... I am impressed already, tho' I knew I would be - they are all France, Switzerland or the UK, so nothing from Spain or East of the Swiss Rone valley, 'cos I ain't been there yet I would like to think the colours are representative, but as I say.... probably not as much as I would like.
1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11 and 14 are done and dusted.

Limited time, so I may be duplicating some already known right or wrong answers, but on immediate impressions (so I have an excuse if I get all or most wrong):

2. melanops
4. argyrognomon
6. orbitulus
8. damon
12. argus
13. osiris
15. rebeli
16. alcetas
17. dorylas
18. thersites?? (on colour maybe, but black margins too wide and extending along veins too far)
19. eros
20. escheri

Roger

4 of those spot on Roger...including the one on the road when we were with you - I would add the colour of No 4 is very Reverdin, more than it is of it's true owner... probably why it might seem there have been RAW development issues... but it was stonking fresh and just a stunning colour for the species even to the eye
With 2 votes for damon on No 8 that is now a wrap.
I'm naming the photos in the top post as they are ID'd twice correctly - so 8/20 now have IDs
This is meant to be unfair - no-one should be expected to get all of them from the info I posted

Is 16 Common Blue?

Yes

I think you might have a long wait if you are expecting two correct IDs on each photo when they have been viewed 95 times already. If you let us know which have been correctly ID'd (once) so far, we can have a crack at the remaining ones, with reasons for thinking so. Guy is back in CH tomorrow I think, and no doubt he will have further views when he has time to study them, and that should produce an interesting discussion.

I would add that the uppersides of quite a few blues can be extremely variable, especially eros, idas/calliopsis, even amandus. Have a look at web pages with a number of photos of each species and see the variation. I have seen dozens of eros and not one of them has really looked the same colour as the illustration in Tolman & Lewington.

Roger

I mainly posted it for the colours which are worth celebrating, and I know there are some quite extreme variations... OK... maybe we've all had enough....

the remaining ones are ( but in no particular order).... melanops, escheri, trappi, eros, orbitulus, thersites, osiris, alcetas and argyrognomon... well apart from the doubt you cast over one in particular.... but I'm tolerably certain it was thersites - ( but willing to alter if consensus demands so, but I think we picked it apart before )

If anyone can be bothered, just stick them in order.

and as for eros... I think it has to be one that is immediately ID-able in the field, but not on paper... and I wouldn't have liked the job of trying to replicate the colour, knowing how beautifully enigmatic it is until I saw one, I tried to make lots of my French icarus into eros out of pure hope!!- idiot!!

Reverdin wrote:and as for eros... I think it has to be one that is immediately ID-able in the field, but not on paper

Therein lies the problem with male Blues - their irridescence and subtlety can make them hard to identify in the two dimensional world. Sometimes, when one sees them in the flesh, there is an indiscernable 'something' that makes you question your instincts.

Here are some more suggestions. It's a bit difficult flicking back and forth comparing with what others have said, so I'm just working from the pictures that don't have names next to them - apologies if you've already rejected some of these!

2 The fringe suffusion is what has me puzzled here. I'll try amandus now.
4 My initial thought had been osiris so I'll try that now, since orbitula is wrong. It still looks wrong for osiris, though.
13 I'll try osiris for this too. It looks more like osiris than 4 does... I know only one can be right.
15 could just be trappi...
17 dorylas?
18 from the furriness I guess it's from the genus formerly known as Agrodiaetus - so escheri? But I've never seen escheri quite so furry!
19 very difficult - I'd love to see/know more! Maybe rebeli??
20 the slight hairiness again suggests escheri, as do the bright antler markings

This is a bit like playing Battleships... Any hits?

Guy

Fun game indeed!

20 has to be dorylas as one of mine was correct and there are now two nominations for the other ... and it has not been confirmed.

I'm also willing to believe 2 as melanops. Guy seems to have missed the list of remaining species earlier.

There is also no reason why 4 couldn't be orbitulus - as long as 6 is not escheri. Incidentally, I would suggest 17 for escheri.

The eros colour I can't know as I've never seen one, but maybe 12? (or 19) This is a pair that really baffles me. I can't imagine what the other is. The colors on both are quite different from others.

And if eros is either of those, then 6 is indeed alcetas as that is the last possible hit in my initial row.

The last ones seem to be rather challenging. I have no idea of the flight period (and too lazy for books) so that I have ignored.