Recent trends

[Grkovich, Alex]

Regarding the Red Spotted Purple/White Admiral hybrids, everyone should keep
an eye out for the various forms, most of which look like the Red Spotted
with more or less of the white bands (form "albofasciata"), but there are
also rarer examples of specimens which look reddish below like the White
Admiral but otherwise have very little or nothing of the white bands (form
"proserpina"). I have found good examples of both in western MA (around
Hadley, for example). And, finally, keep an eyeout as well for the  RARE but
occurring interspecific hybrids between the Viceroy and the two Purples.
Most (if not all) of the Viceroy/Red Spotted hybrids (about 45 records) seem
to occur in the Mississippi/Ohio River valleys (I have one from Dayton, OH
Aug 87) but they could occur in the northeast, and there are very rare
Viceroy/White Admiral hybrids from Maine and Quebec.
   Alex 

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	bill and Dale [SMTP:droberts03 at snet.net]
> Sent:	Wednesday, June 06, 2001 9:37 PM
> To:	butterfly ct
> Subject:	Recent trends
> 
> For those who were in the right habitat the past couple of days some
> interesting trends.
> Driving the gravel roads around the local reservoir (Madison) I had 11
> Red-spotted Purples on Monday and three more today at Chatfield Hollow.
> This is an area where White Admirals turn up (both the reservoir and
> Chatfield) and it is a good place to see an occasional mixed form,
> although that hasn't happened for me yet this year.
> Also Common Ringlets exploded in the past couple of days and in my Sweet
> Flag/Sedge swamp this morning I had 30 to 35 flying.
> Finally since some ode reports are creeping into this site, until
> someone reprimands me I'm going to mention that Chatfield Hollow was
> WILD with odondate species today, species too numerous to list on a lep
> site but for those interested take a ride there.
>                                Cheers,
>                                                          Bill Yule