Papilio abberants on Ebay

[mothman55]

I have noticed recently abberant Papilio machaon offered on Ebay from universal_butterflies. It appears the individual has mastered the art of creating aberrants "in the lab". After a few aberrant machaons, next was an aberrant Papilio glaucus, a rare "fletcheri", which when caught in the wild are certainly a dream of a lifetime. These bred abberants are fetching big money and credit to the fellow that was able to accomplish this. But to me this takes the shine off of finding an aberrant in the wild, as now that they can be "produced", it somewhat obscures the uniqueness of the wild specimens. Just wondering what others think? 

[Adam Cotton]

See this thread about the subject, originally about some Colias aberrations he made:

collector-secret.proboards.com/thread/3245/color-variation-colias?page=3

Adam.

[mothman55]

Thanks Adam, I can see that this topic has been throughly discussed, and I am happy to see that my feelings on the subject are shared by others. I noticed that the initial offering for machaon went for $1875, while a similar specimen just went for $480, so as more are offered, the novelty starts to wear off. The initial offering of glaucous fletcheri just went for $2125 (and yes it was beautiful) but I expect if more hit the market they will also drop substantially in price. I do see that Marco has added more verbiage to his offerings since the initial machaon listing, but "experimental research on wing patterns" still doesn't really cover chemical injections into pupae (assuming that is the base principal employed), as I suspect that description would suppress the bid prices some.

Although I commend Marco on the scientific achievement with these laboratory altered specimens, I just don't like it. As more people figure out how to do this, some unethical people will start selling them as wild caught to maximize price, and how will we know which is which.

[nomad]

There was a time when Papilio Machaon induced aberrations were fetching small prices, even extreme ones. Why this has changed I am not sure? They are eye catching but I guess for the seller its a good factory line money making business. I expect once you have made several, its not that hard to do, if you know your chemicals and how to use them. Its the new stamp collecting fad, chemical aberrations with no data for those with big pockets who like unusual things. I guess you can tell I am not a fan. Give me a good wild collection aberration, or bred ab any day with good data. Wild extreme abs are seen perhaps by few in a lifetime, but the event will always be remembered. I guess that is why these ebay chemical butterflies have an appeal in this instance, because people cannot just go out and expect to collect one, or expect one to turn up in their breeding cages, but on ebay its easy with ££ $$.... 

[bobw]

Man-made aberrations have been around for a long time, E B Ford talked about temperature experiments in his book and many people have tried them since.  There's nothing wrong with doing this - they are scientifically valid experiments, as long as nobody tries to pass them off as wild-caught aberrations  Probably the most well-known exponent of temperature experiments is Karl Bailey, he tried many different techniques but said it was always a bit hit and miss, and was mainly most successful with Nymphalidae.  Karl distributed his specimens quite widely but always made it clear that they had been produced by temperature experiments, but I'm sure that there are people who try to pass such things off as wild-caught.

It seems that Marco has found a more reliable way to produce such aberrations by using chemicals rather than (or maybe in addition to) temperature, he also seems to have more success with families other than Nymphalidae.  Fortunately he is not trying to pretend they are anything other than man-made experiments but who's to say that after specimens have changed hands a few times somebody might not add a rogue data label to a specimen in order to try to sell it for more.  As he seems to be able to produce them quite readily I'm sure the prices will plummet once the initial demand has been met.

I have to say that whilst I find the techniques fascinating I find the results rather "Frankesteinian".  Fortunately I have absolutely no interest in aberrations themselves as I'm sure that the prices these things realise and the doubt over genuine provenances would soon drive me mad.

[nomad]

May 12, 2020 12:11:55 GMT bobw said:

As he seems to be able to produce them quite readily I'm sure the prices will plummet once the initial demand has been met.

I expect he has a lot more ready for sale and will put them on the market slowly, so the prices do not take a nose dive. He is no doubt very good at his chemicals. True the early cold shock experiments had science attached to them, but there is nothing really scientific in what Macro is doing, its just butterfly art made by chemicals. If Damien Hirst can make millions out of pretty butterfly pictures, then good luck to Macro and those that buy his things. They are just not for me, and no doubt in many years to come some will acquire bogus labels, but then from what I have seen, this will be nothing unusual and I have seen quite a few fake labels on butterfly specimens, attached to up their value.

[yorky]

Marco is a good guy and he's honest and upfront about them being manufactured. I'm with Bob on this, they are of little interest to me and I find the sums of money that they command absurd but each to their own, we all collect for different reasons.