Euphaedra Francina series

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On a recent visit to Watkins and Doncaster while looking through the old collections I was fortunate enough to find a series of 5 males and 4 females of the very rare euphaedra francina, a very special butterfly, although old and not in A1 condition I was still very exited to have them. The bottom male is either an ab or belongs to another ssp, maybe exuberans, having very little orange on the forewings.

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And the 4 females

[deliasfanatic]

I've checked "Butterflies of West Africa", and male #5 is not exuberans. The latter has a broader orange patch on the FW. I'd say that yours is either a variation or a mild aberration.

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Cheers Danny, Dave said a similar thing, it is quite distinct at any rate not shown really in the picture taken with my poor, dying camera.

[cabintom]

I have my doubts about a lot of the species being separated in Euphaedra. Hecq seems to have been a bit too liberal in how he chose to divide species.

[deliasfanatic]

Feb 16, 2017 18:00:11 GMT cabintom said:

I have my doubts about a lot of the species being separated in Euphaedra. Hecq seems to have been a bit too liberal in how he chose to divide species.

I have to agree - not that I am an expert on them by any means - but I have to question the ever-continuing stream of new species, many nearly indistinguishable, that continue to be described, particularly since they are nearly all treated as full species rather than subspecies of previously known species. My thought on this intensified after seeing his handling of the "Butterflies of the World" Pseudacraea fascicle, which is among the worst I've seen. He treats proven forms as independent species, and there was at least one example of using an improper name.