Extreme variation, albino, melanic or aberration?

[Deleted]

Well here in the UK we have an absurd amount of variations of our limited butterfly fauna, if we take for example Lysandra coridon or Lycaena phlaeas the difference in every underside dot seem to be considered worthy of a name and it becomes exhausting trying to keep up with them all so common sense needs to be used that the specimen in question differs enough from the norm to be worthy to be considered.

[nomad]

I would suggest that any aberration differing greatly from the norm would be considered an extreme one. I myself prefer the albino ones. I believe the term varieties was often used by earlier entomologists to represent an aberration.

[deliasfanatic]

Like many things, I'd say that it more of a sliding scale than black-and-white. If one could examine thousands of specimens of a given taxon, you'd probably find slight variations, extreme aberrations, and everything between. I'm specifically talking about markings and not so much albinos or the like, which probably don't have such a range of variation. I suppose I'd term something an "extreme variation" if it's very markedly different from the normal appearance.

I do think that wild-caught aberrations are very interesting and add spice to a collection. I have specimens with missing markings, extra markings, strange markings, and so forth. Personally I have no interest in bred or "manufactured" aberrations.

[Deleted]

I do have a liking for hybrids, always have, some like those of Mr Cotton are truly stunning.