www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

I have recently returned from a visit to Oz and NC. Despite it being the end of their winter, there were a few butterflies around. I started off at the Brisbane Botanical Gardens, a beautifully curated site of about 65 hectares, which contains some pockets of original vegetation.

The first butterfly seen was this 'Blue'
At first, I thought it was L. boeticus, but now I'm not so sure. I couldn't get a look at the underside, but if anyone has any ideas I'd be grateful.

There were quite a lot of Plumbago Blues Leptotes plinius flying around the hedges. I'd not seen it before, but it has a very characteristic underside:
Then 'spot the butterfly' :
This was flushed from under my feet three times before I managed to spot it. It would fly a couple of metres and settle, when it was very difficult to find. Unfortunately, it was rather beaten up and not worth a close shot. Fairly sure it is Evening Brown Melanitis leda, but happy to be corrected.
During this first trip to the gardens I also saw Monarch, Common Crow and a Hairy Line-blue. I got a poor ID shot of this last, but it is not worth posting.

Will continue later,

Tony M.

How exciting! I look forward to the rest of the pictures!

I suspect the first picture is a female long-tailed blue. There are several superficially similar (from the upperside) species but I can't see anything to suggest this isn't long-tailed. I also agree the last picture shows an evening brown.

Guy

Am watching enthusiastically Tony.
Chris

Another (poor) shot of Pumbago Blue, showing the characteristic patterning on the female upperside.
.

Next flew to Numea (capital of NC), expecting 'hicksville'. We were surprised to find a bustling city of 100,000 souls with many hotels and excellent French restaurants. First butterfly was a Common Crow (Euploea core), I think..., flying around blossoms in the central square:
.

We took a car up to the local nature reserve and saw our first Glasswings (Acraea andromacha). A delightful, delicate little butterfly, which proved quite tricky to shoot:
We were also treated to a sight of a Ulysses Swallowtail, occulting shining metallic blue and black as it powered past - unfortunately, without stopping . Most wild areas are covered with 'foret seche' or 'dry rainforest', which sounds distinctly tautological to me

Next stop was near Bourail, where my first outing produced a sparklingly fresh Meadow Argus (Junonia villida) - a really lovely insect:
More anon,

Tony M.

That Meadow Argus is Fantastic Tony !

BWs

William

I am loving the Meadow Argus

Charles

Fantastic. I would love to go to Australia to see the flora and fauna there. I'm looking forward to reading about what else you see.

Thanks for the comments, guys.
The area around Bourail is very dry and dusty at this time - the commonest butterfly is the Common Grass-blue (Zizina labradus):
.

Also common was the Small Grass-yellow (Euremia smilax). These were about half the size of the Common Grass-yellow and were much more approachable:
.

Whilst wandering through the grass, I spotted a small Lycaenid that looked different. It proved to be a Two-spotted Line-blue (Nacaduba biocellata). It is certainly necessary out there to know the scientific names of stuff. This is also called Acacia Blue, Double spotted Line-blue, Kasis Blu, and Double-spotted Blue! The various illustrations that I have seen fail to show the marked difference in colour of the wing undersides. The forewing is a bright orange brown and the hindwing pale grey brown:
.

I also saw a couple more Monarchs and a few Glasswings, but no decent pix .

Isle of Pines tomorrow .


Tony M.

Wonderful. Again, I'm sure you're right with your id of Euploea core. Apart from the relative narrowness of the hindwing pd band, the noticeably scalloped forewing rules out similar Euploea species.

Guy

The first blue is almost certainly Theclinesthes onycha onycha (Cycad Blue). The fact that it seems to be sitting on a Cycad or Macrozamia Palm, its larval foodplant, is the decider.
Regards,
David Hall
Sydney, Australia

I love those last three butterflies you posted! What are you using as an ID guide for the butterflies of New Caledonia? Is there such a thing?

Thanks, David - brilliant to get some input from Oz.

I'm sure you are right with T. onycha. It was very attached to the Cycad, landing frequently and testing the surface - I watched it for about 20 mins on the same clump.
Any other comments, especially on IDs, would be very welcome.

Nick - I have Michael Braby's 'Butterflies of Australia, which contains most stuff. Also 'Ol Buttaflae blong Vanuatu', which has many NC species, although usually Vanuatu endemic subspecies. I sometimes ask the members of the 'Singapore Butterfly Circle'. This has some seriously clued up guys - I used them many times when I was in the Philippines.

Tony.

On the way from Bourail to Noumea, for our 20 min hop to the Isle of Pines, the driver stopped for gas. I was out of the car like a ferret to see what I could find...
I'm pretty sure that this is a male Silver Forget-Me-Not (Catochrysops panormus) despite the diagnostic costal spot being hardly visible. Although faint, it is in the right place, close to the post-discal band. Unfortunately, I couldn't hang around long enough to get a really good upper shot, but it's still a stunning butterfly.

The Isle of Pines is much more tropical than the rest of NC, with lush green vegetation and, not surprisingly, lots of Pine trees . We were surrounded by forest, which had nice wide pylon tracks - sunny and perfect for butterflies - had there been any sun.... Sadly, most of our three days were cloudy and/or raining . During one short sunny spell, I saw a couple more Ulysses Swallowtails but they vanished without pause.
I did see what is probably the plainest of the Delias, the Yellow-spotted Jezebel (Delias nysa):


Also the lovely Caper White (Belenois java) - which should be a Delias!
Whilst photographing this last, I got chased off by a very fierce looking islander, who took exception (entirely reasonably) to my being in his bit of forest. Good job it wasn't the nineteenth cent - he'd probably have eaten me....

Last look a Brisbane tomorrow,

Tony M.

Back to Brisbane to find that it had been raining for most of our ten days away. Everything was much greener,so we had another day in the Botanical Gardens. A number of Lemon Migrants (Catopsilia pomona) were whizzing around a flowering shrub (if anyone can ID this from the pix, I'd be delighted to know - it was a real butterfly magnet). All the following photographs were taken around this bush

Lemon Migrant. Two shots of a Yellow Albatross (Appias paulina)
.

What I think maybe a very worn female Bright Cornelian (Deudorix diovis) , especially given its orange 'topknot'.
A Bordered Rustic (Cupha prosope)
And, finally, this whizzed in... A Chrome Awl (Hasora chromus)
This last was my only Hesperid and an exciting end to a great butterflying experience.

Tony M.

Could your Delias nysa actually be Cepora perimale, showing its winter (dry season) colours?

Guy

Padfield wrote:Could your Delias nysa actually be Cepora perimale, showing its winter (dry season) colours?

.

All the books that I have show a black hind wing border on C. perimale. Nysa is the only species I could find with completely white hind wings - the two pix of ?nysa? are of the same individual. I'll put it past the Singapore guys and see what they say. Did you see the post from Australia ID'ing the Cycad Blue? All very fascinating imo....

Tony.

Your D nysa pic had me puzzling too. It's certainly nothing like the Australian subspecies of nysa. Only problem was I have no literature on New Caledonian butterflies.
So off to Google it was.
I found these pics of the New Caledonian D nysa here : http://www.endemia.nc/faune/fiche2656.html And this pic of a male New Caledonian Cepora perimale acrisa on the same website (note it has hardly any black border on the hindwing)
And finally this live pic of an Australian Cepora perimale showing the brown hindwing underside of the winter form from here http://toowoombaplants2008.blogspot.com ... chive.html
So I have to agree with Guy, your pic is of a Cepora perimale (female dry season form).
regards,
David Hall.

Hi Guy and David'

I have just heard back from Singapore and they suggest that we are all wrong!! Two replies, both suggesting an Appias species...

I reproduce the replies below (Dr Seow is a world renowned expert on the area and one argues with him a one's peril ):

Neither of those mentioned. It is an Appias species, two of which I know are found on New Caledonia, A. albina and A. paulina (there may be others I am not aware of). Not knowing the local subspecies, I would not want to guess which.

I took the liberty of checking the Australian Appias since any spp. in New Caledonia is likely to be found in Australia.
It looks like the NC ssp. of Appias melania.
These below are Australian.
http://lepidoptera.butterflyhouse.com.au/pier/mela.html
https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7144/6...4c12f114_z.jpg

Fascinating stuff - qu'est-ce vous pensez?

Tony.

Further to my last, the underside shot that I sent to Singapore was a different insect from the above . D'oh!
Here is the other shot:
This appears to have a more indented forewing margin - more like Appias, in fact...

I have sent the original to the SBC and will report back in due course.

Who's the dummy?

Tony.

It's strange there isn't a book covering the butterflies of New Caledonia - or if there is, I haven't been able to find it. I have both Braby (Australia) and the excellent Butterflies of the South Pacific for the Pacific islands - but neither covers New Caledonia. The Wikipedia list of NC butterflies is clearly wildly inaccurate, so that doesn't help when narrowing things down. I tried searching in French instead of English and found some promising links but they turned out to be dead.

I look forward to hearing the experts' final opinions!

Guy