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I hope this selection of recent photographs from Vietnam may brighten the odd winter evening

A Common Mormon (Papilio polytes)
The stunning Leopard Lacewing (Cethosia cyane) - I hope! One of several flying around the Cham ruins at My Son
Blue Glassy Tiger (Ideopsis vulgaris) and the Dark Glassy Tiger (Parantica agleoides
from the same place.

A Common Pierrot (Castalius rosimon). One of half a dozen or so flying round a tiny bit of waste ground in the middle of a paddy field near Hoi An.
Please correct any wrong IDs. A few more to come when I've done sorting .

Tony M.

It certainly does brighten the evening here, Tony! How lovely to be watching these creatures!

I won't presume to 'correct' any IDs but I'd suggest the second tiger might be aglea rather than agleoides, based on several things but in particular the length of the subapical streaks on the forewing (much shorter in agleoides). This is given as diagnostic in the Butterflies of Thailand (Pisusth Ek-Amnuay), which is not so far away - but there may be different forms in Vietnam.

Guy

Nice images, Tony. They certainly do brighten up what is a wet, windy and miserable winter evening in south Wales.

Thanks, Guy - I'm sure you're right. I took the ID from my Singapore book, somewhat in hope rather than expectation !

Do you have any ideas about this 'Blue'?
Sorry about the dreadful focus - I only had one chance, but the underside looked sufficiently unusual to be worth checking. This was the only example that I saw.

Tony.

This is Chilades pandava - the plains cupid. Don't hesitate to post more - it's lovely to see these species.

Guy

Very refreshing Tony. How lucky you are to be able to travel widely. Thanks.
Chris

Guy,

Dr Seow from Singapore suggests that the 'Blue' above is the Indian Lime Blue (Chilades lajus). Any thoughts?

Tony.

We flew into Hanoi, a disastrously polluted city with thousands of motorbikes clogging the streets and ancient buses and trucks belching out diesel. I was surprised to actually find a butterfly - a perfect, fresh Great Mormon (Papiliio memnon), determinedly feeding on a vase of lilies, which had been left as an offering outside a pagoda on the central lake. My efforts at photography were hampered by the attentions of a dozen Japanese, who were all trying to take 'selfies' with the unfortunate beastie. This was the best I could do:
We then flew down to Hoi An on the coast, where we were staying in a small village, surrounded by rice paddies. This was much better - every little bit of uncultivated land produced a few species:

Pygmy Grass Blue (Zizula hylax).
Telicota ohara
Another Common Mormon (Papilio polytes).

Himalayan Swift (Polytremis discreta).
And finally, one for the Odonataphiles:

More later,

Tony M.

Hi Tony. Chilades pandava and lajus are closely related and both quite variable, but only pandava is tailed. I interpret your butterfly as being tailed - the tail of the far (right) hindwing being visible and the near tail broken off (or maybe, now I look carefully at the full-size picture, the visible tail is actually from the left hindwing). Just possibly, that is not actually a tail one can see - in which case I would certainly reconsider lajus. Do you have any other shots, even poor ones, that are less ambiguous as to the tail?

More great shots, by the way!

Guy

EDIT:

This is a pair of pandava I photographed in India. The markings are a little different but the tails are exactly the length and pattern of what appears to be the tail in your picture:

Thanks, Guy - it looks like no contest. I'll let you know when I hear back from Dr Seow.

I went again to the bit of scrub where I found the Mango Hawkmoth, to find a fine male Tawny Coster (Acraea violae) aggressively protecting his territory. It chased off anything in its area, even Great Eggflies and Lacewings twice its size:
.

Peacock Pansies (Junonia almana) were also fairly common.
We took a trip out into the Mekong Delta, where we landed on a small island. There, I watched several pairs of Common Palmflies (Elymnias hypermnestra) performing their mating ritual. They flap lazily around one another, hardly moving laterally at all. This behaviour seems interminable - I followed one pair for 25 minutes without sign of either landing! Eventually, I found a singleton on a low shrub:

The highlight was a couple of Lime Butterflies (Papilio demoleus), taking salts from a grubby bit of concrete. These butterflies are normally very difficult to approach, but eventually one landed just in front of me and spread its wings beautifully:
.


A very pleasing end to an interesting holiday .

Tony M.

.

Some great photos there Tony. I can't even choose a favourite -
Chris

Japanese and selfies What is it about Japanese that they so love to be photographed?



This group insisted that I took their photo in Glencoe last year even though they would never see the result.
And gadgets are endlessly fascinating to them. The guy on the left (he spoke decent English) was intrigued by my dashcam – what make it was, how many pixels, and so on.
(The car in the picture was not theirs - it was owned by a Belgian photographer. They managed a very respectable conversation in English!)

Anyway Tony, did you have unwanted attention from the Vietnamese? I gather that in India for example, you are not left alone for ten seconds. I found the same when trying to photograph butterflies in Nairobi. Any problems like that Tony?

Gorgeous photo of Papilio demoleus I recall seeing that (or similar) somewhere (Singapore?) but it never settled. Indeed, all your photos are first rate.

Jack

Thanks, Chris and Jack,

No problem at all with the Vietnamese. Considering how their country was raped by the US, I was surprised to find them so friendly. There were still many horrible deformities to be seen, courtesy of the American's Agent Orange . They must have known.

Regarding the Japanese, I was diving Shark Point in Egypt, when I arrived at a corner in the wall. A Japanese diver crossed in front of me and I was astonished to see her carrying a little flag on a stick! As I waited for her to pass, about twenty other Japanese, two abreast, swam past, dutifully following their leader in a splendid tail... .

Theer's nowt so queer as folk.

Tony.