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Post by nomad on Aug 8, 2018 9:46:10 GMT
Silver-spotted Skipper, Hesperia comma.
This delightful skipper which has an attractive underside, is one of the last species to appear on the wing in Britain, peaking in early to mid August. One more widespread, it is now confined to chalk grassland sites in Southern England, where at some sites it can be fairly numerous, thriving in the shorter turf. It visits a variety of chalkland flowers. Females. North Downs, Surrey, August. Male. North Downs, Surrey, August. . Female. Broughton Down, Hampshire, August and habitat.
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Post by Adam Cotton on Aug 8, 2018 15:42:18 GMT
Super photos as ever. I expect you were really happy to photograph these.
Here in Thailand we have many species of Hesperiidae that look rather similar to this. I remember meeting Kiyoshi Maruyama (a Japanese Hesperiid expert who wrote the Hesperiid part of Butterflies of Borneo) in eastern Laos about 10 years ago. We first met in habitat near Nahin, and after I returned to my hotel in Lak Sao (about 60 km east of there) I was really surprised to find that he had the room next to mine. That evening he showed me how he everted the genitalia of all the specimens he caught each day and photographed them via a microscope connected to his laptop. He told me that is the only way to distinguish many of the species in SE Asia accurately as wing pattern is almost identical in many of them.
Adam.
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Post by nomad on Aug 8, 2018 18:17:46 GMT
Thank you for the kind comment Adam. Kiyoshi Maruyama sounds like a very passionate Lepidopterist. Hesperia comma is always nice to see, even if its one of the last to appear here and reminds you how quickly the short British summer is. However, at least its been a lovely warm summer and plenty of butterflies about.
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wolf
Aurelian
Posts: 132
Country: Norway
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Post by wolf on Aug 11, 2018 14:19:05 GMT
Norway and Scandinavia in general has had an exeptionally hot summer. Here in Norway it started in beginning of May with temps up to and around 30 degrees celcius, which lasted all the way through July, also creating a terrible drought, forest fires ect. BUT that was not my point. My point is that we had an explosion of this sp. this year. Normally it is rather local and scarce and normal flight times are usually mid july through august. This year they were reported as early as mid June. I had never seen it in Norway before, but this year i found it in several locations, both known from before and not previously known. Some locations literally had hundreds of them flying around close to the ground visiting what i think is Scorzoneroides autumnalis flowers. On another note. Another species which also had an explosion this year in Norway was Issoria lathonia. It has been reported in hundreds from early May through the whole summer, and still being reported.
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