I didn't know him or knew about his illness. I do remember many of his posts however. Nevertheless its always sad to see one of our members pass away. R.I.P
This summer i was lucky and stumbled upon a cluster of larva that i brought home. I found them in L3-L4 stage. This is the first time i've found larva of this sp. The funny part was that after finding the first cluster at one location, within 1 week, i found several other clusters of larva in different locations(i let those be as i had enough from the first find). All was found on small bushes of Salix sp. I ended up with over 100 adults from the first cluster of larva that i found, allthough some did not hatch properly, or had wing defects. Non of the larva was parasitized.
Second breeding "project" of this year. Eggs found 29. march 2020. Kept the eggs in the fridge, and took them out in late april. They started hatching after 2 days in room temp at the 22. april. First larva pupated 12. may and first imago hatched 2. june. Hostplant was Quercus petraea Enjoy the image series
This sp is considered local and rare around south eastern part of Norway. Most likely they are more common than we think, but since they spend most of their time high up in the canopy they are easily overlooked. I was happy to find a spot last year, and in early April this year i decided to go and look for eggs, only to find that most of the eggs had allready hatched! I was however able to find some L1 larva feeding on the leaf- and flowerbuds of the hostplant Ulmus glabra. I managed to grab 11 L1 larva. 3 of these died in late L1/early L2 stage(for some reason they stopped eating?). The rest pupated, and the first male and female have now hatched. Since i have been keeping them inside, their life cycle has been pretty fast, and the hatching is unusually early, as these usually fly from late june/beginning of july here in Norway.
Data: L1 larva found 6. april. First larva pupated 27. april. First male hatched 14. may, and first female hatched today the 19. may.
This species can be found only at some locations in southern Ontario. It is very localized and it is uncommon in most of its Canadian range.
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I collected some specimens in Vancouver in 2015 which i have labeled Strymon melinus atrofasciata. Unfortunately i dont have any pictures at hand. Is this a valid ssp?
Found this youtube channel around 1 week ago and thought it would be worth sharing to people that dont know about this. I have almost been binge watching their content. There is some really impressive videography, documenting big parts of the lifecycle and behavior of different butterfly species.
Paruparo lumawigi mindorana from Mindoro Isl in The Philippines. This was gifted to me by my good friend Noel Mohagan. He had a handful of specimens which he had gotten from Mt. Baco. He told me he had never seen this species from Mt. Baco before, and only seen it once before from Mt. Halcon. So i'd like to think this is a rather scarce species/subspieces.
I have this from Tingo Maria, Peru. I've labeled it as P.philinus descimoni. But after looking at this topic and other photos online i think maybe this might be the nominate ssp. aswell?
As a newly educated doctor in Norway you are required to have 1,5 year of internship before starting your specialization. This internship consist of 1 year in a hospital and 6 months in a general practitioner/family doctors office. After finishing my year in the hospital i decided to do the 6 month part of my internship up north, in northern Norway. The timing was perfect as i would be getting the spring and summer up there. I started in March until the end of August. I spent all weekends from early June until beginning of August travelling around looking for butterflies. I also decided to have vacation the first 2 weeks in July, where i took my car and drove all around in the 2 most northern states of Norway, a trip of about 3200km all together.
Of the 11 species specific to Northern Norway i managed to find and catch 10 out of 11, only missing out on Euphydryas iduna. Apart from that i also managed to get some of the species with specific subspecies from the north like L.phlaeas polaris and L.hippothoe stiberi. I've added some pictures of most of the butterfly species i found and some pics of their habitat. Enjoy!
This "gate" along the E6 road marks the border of the arctic circle.
Boloria freija from mid June.
This is a typical locality of B. freija. Open marsh area with flowering Rubus chamaemorus, which is the main hostplant, allthough it can eat other plants aswell.
Boloria frigga from late June. Typical habitat would also be open marsh areas where it as alot of Rubus chamaemorus, at several places they would be flying together with B.freija and also Erebia disa.
Boloria polaris from end of June/early July.
This was one locality with B.polaris, it looks flat, but it was actually quite rugged terrain!
Boloria chariclea from early July
Locality of B.chariclea. This locality was also home to B.polaris and Oeneis bore, which i sadly dont have any pictures of.
Boloria improba improbula from mid July.
Locality of B.improba, it was flying from around 900-1100m asl. It took about 2 hours to walk up to the locality. Also flying up there would be Colias hecla, C.tyche, Erebia pandrose and Pyrgus andromedae.
Colias hecla sulitelma from mid July.
Typical habitat of C.hecla. Also flying here was C.tyche.
Colias tyche werdandi from mid July. I found others at another locality in early July which was not so battered, this one was just taken pictures of then released again.
Erebia disa and locality, often flying together with B.freija and B.frigga. This pictured E.disa was very dark, usually the red spots on the forewings are more prominent, but i dont have any other pictures.
Erebia polaris from early July.
Agriades aquilo and typical locality from early July.
Yesterday 2 danish butterfly collectors got arrested in the Norwegian mountains by police after tips from the public that they were collecting protected butterfly species. When police got to the two men they had around 40 specimens of the Apollo butterfly(Parnassius apollo) on them. They were later released but are going to face some kind of criminal punishment. Most of the news stories were either in danish or norwegian, but i found a rather poorly translated news article on some random site. They will probably get a big fine, nothing more
Tony is alive and well. I've met him at ento meetings several times, last time this february. I will ask him about the website, but i remember couple of years ago i talked with him and asked about the website, and he told me he is not maintaining it anymore, and that it is codewise outdated.
EDIT: Tony told me the site was closed down by his server provider some months ago because they found a virus on his site. He further told me that he want to learn some of the new publishing tools, like wordpress or similar to relaunch the site in a new format, but has never gotten around to actually do it as he has no time in a rather busy daily life. Most likely the site wont be up for a good while, or maybe never again.