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Post by nomad on Sept 22, 2017 15:16:46 GMT
I found this super Red Admiral aberration today in a walled garden of a large house I was visiting. Looks very similar to Frowhawk's ab. albo-punctura, Plate 20 in Varieties of British Butterflies (1938). It was feeding on groups of michaelmas daisy along with typical Vanessa atalanta and commas, Polygonia c-album. There were a few Red Admirals in the park on ivy, an underside is shown for comparison. While there are lots of man made aberrations of this species today, extreme naturally occurring aberrations such as this were considered a great prize because they are rare. Below typical. A few Commas joined them.
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Post by trehopr1 on Sept 22, 2017 15:32:14 GMT
Outstanding Nomad ! ! One of those real "one in a million" days out in nature. Very cool....
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Post by nomad on Sept 22, 2017 16:07:16 GMT
I agree, certainly the best ab I have ever found.
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Post by Adam Cotton on Sept 22, 2017 16:39:05 GMT
Fantastic. You were really lucky to see that in a garden you happened to be visiting.
You must also be happy that you don't have to stop and change the roll of film every few shots. Back in the old days I always used to be on the last photo when I found something worth shooting, and it would be gone by the time the film was changed.
Adam.
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Post by nomad on Sept 22, 2017 18:57:02 GMT
Yes Adam, certainly digital helps. When I first saw this stunning ab, the sun went in and it flew over a wall. I later saw it again and again it disappeared. I was lucky to see it for the third time and that there were spaced clumps of michaelmas daisies because it was quite nervous and kept moving from one clump to another, sometimes at distance, with me hot on its trail. I was supposed to be admiring the splendid late summer show of flowers in the walled garden after a visit to the adjacent historic house , but I always carry my camera in my small rucksack, as you just do not know what might turn up.
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Post by Paul K on Sept 23, 2017 3:12:19 GMT
I'm assuming that photos are all what's left ? No specimen is there ? Anyway great finding, indeed one in a million. Perhaps you should try lottery this weekend
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Post by nomad on Sept 23, 2017 5:33:11 GMT
Well, I do not collect British specimens, only photograph them, and I am sure those that do would consider this a prize or it might have turned up on ebay. However, I am pleased to have only a photographic record of this superb aberration, so that I might share the images and others might appreciate it, in all its glory.
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Post by nomad on Sept 28, 2017 12:33:54 GMT
The ab of the Red Admiral I found is figured in two books. Varieties of British Butterflies (1930). Plate 20 fig 1 & 2. ab. albo-punctura by F.W. Frohawk and Aberrations of British Butterflies (1978) Plate 19 fig 2 ab. klemensiewiczi Schille 1896 by A.D.A. Russwurm. Plate 19 appeared on the dustjacket of the Russwurm's book. ab. albo-punctura Frohawk 1938 is a Junior Synonym of ab. klemensiewiczi Schille 1896.
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Post by jshuey on Sept 28, 2017 13:38:59 GMT
So, don’t take this the wrong way. It’s just a story and observation from my youth – and not an attempt at stereotyping my English-speaking friends across the pond.
Back in my youthful collage days, I was taking a senior-level evolutionary biology course. We used the text written by Paul Ehrlich – who most people in this group know for his work with checkerspot butterflies. And my professor, Gerry Svenson, was a friend of Ehrlich’s having spent a few summers of research at the same field station in Colorado that Ehrlich used.
Much to my pleasure, the text book had a strong butterfly-centric focus given Ehrlich’s background – and at a couple of points alluded to the fascination in Great Britain with butterfly “sports” (a.k.a., aberrations) and the role that they played in understanding the evolution of phenotypic variation. Gerry made it clear that he thought the fascination with “sports” bordered on obsession. So, at age 21, that was my singular image of a typical British lepidopterist.
So – occasionally, posts like these make me smile a bit…, and reconfirm my naive ethnic profiling. I’m just saying…, “sports” are more fun across the pond.
john
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Post by bobw on Sept 28, 2017 16:51:38 GMT
Your comments do have some basis in fact John. I know of several collectors over here who only collect British butterflies, now you could collect a series of typical specimens of all species in a couple of seasons so that leaves them at a bit of a loose end. Therefore they start collecting aberrations; this involves either selectively rearing from a slightly aberrant female so that after several generations some fairly extreme aberrations are produced, or collecting aberrations in the field. I know people who would go to a colony of Lysandra coridon for example, find their roosting sites and spend every evening in the flight season checking thousands of specimens for the few aberrant ones they find, obviously this only finds underside abs. After many years of collecting such collectors spend hundreds of hours every year pursuing their passion but may only add half a dozen specimens to their collection each year. I don't understand it myself but if it keeps them happy...
These people are now a dying breed as it's now impossible to collect at most sites over here, and even on legal sites it's frowned upon, but in the past there were a huge number of them. Some of Nomads articles have talked about such people.
By the way, I've never heard the word "sports" used about such things.
Bob
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Post by jshuey on Sept 29, 2017 12:44:10 GMT
By the way, I've never heard the word "sports" used about such things.
Huh - that's the term I always heard used - I assumed it was British for aberration!
John
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Post by nomad on Oct 1, 2017 12:19:02 GMT
I have certainly heard the word sports which is much better than freaks but they have usually been known across the pond in blighty as abs = aberration or varities.
On another note, I do not really get man made aberrations or do many other collectors it seems, that why they realize only low prices. Why would you want something that is man made at the tip of syringe or in someones fridge. I thought the whole point of insect collecting was to collect natural objects. The needle and cold shock abs rarely produced anything as dark as the true wild melanics and you cannot get albinos and other pale abs using that method. I can understand selected breeding by the old collectors, much skill and often many years breeding was needed to produce a rare aberration strain. Many extreme aberrations are rare in the wild and rarity always has the appeal to the collector and thus they became very popular. Today there are a few British butterfly collectors who are interested in aberrations but certainly nothing compared to the heyday of the 19th to the mid 20th century. Don't forget the moth collectors here, they certainly outnumbered those that collected butterflies and they were also interested in abs.
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Post by bobw on Oct 3, 2017 8:37:16 GMT
I know quite a few of these people and I have never heard the word "sports" used even if Nomad has, it doesn't really make a lot of sense anyway. As Nomad says the term that's pretty much universally used for such specimens is "abs".
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Post by nomad on Oct 3, 2017 13:56:01 GMT
I believe the term, Sports was mainly used in the US. This term is used in a number of their books along with the usual name aberration ! It was also used in The butterflies of India, Burmah and Ceylon by Lionel de Niceville and Ivor Migdoll's Field Guide to the Butterflies of Southern Africa and doubtless others.
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Post by nomad on Oct 3, 2017 15:16:04 GMT
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