Butterfly identification help - seen today in Suffield

Grkovich, Alex agrkovich at tmpeng.com
Fri Aug 22 14:26:14 EDT 2008


 

________________________________

From: Clay Taylor [mailto:ctaylor at att.net] 
Sent: Friday, August 22, 2008 2:14 PM
To: Grkovich, Alex; jhimmel at comcast.net; FredNowak at comcast.net;
CTLEPS-L at lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Butterfly identification help - seen today in Suffield


Alex - 
 
Point taken about my "normal" one in East Haddam.    Given that the WA
goes from the Great Smoky Mtns to Ontario, my comment about altitude
might actually be amended to consider the effects of average temperature
/ altitude in their distribution.
[Grkovich, Alex]  Clay, I never said that the White Admiral (i.e.
typical arthemis) goes to the Smokies; I meant that integrades (with
partial banding) do...Now, if somebody has photographed a typical White
Admiral from down there, share it... 
 
BTW, we took CT Butterfly Atlas photos and specimens of full White
Admirals in East Haddam, and it is of regular occurrence in the Devil's
Hopyard area.   The Hopyard is East Haddam's "icebox", and has terrain
more reminiscent of northwestern CT than the CR River valley. 
[Grkovich, Alex] yeah, it should be there; I realzied that after I wrote
the post. The TL for arthemis is in the Catskill Mountains, so it should
be in NW CT...
 don't have any reference material to determine how pure they were.   I
also saw one in flight two days ago in Rhode Island at the Alton Jones
reserve of URI.    I do not ever remember seeing a CT WA in the first
(June) brood - all of them were in the August flight.
 
Wags / Larry - what were the date ranges for White Admirals recorded in
the CT Atlas?
 
Clay

	----- Original Message ----- 
	From: Grkovich, Alex <mailto:agrkovich at tmpeng.com>  
	To: Clay Taylor <mailto:ctaylor at att.net>  ; jhimmel at comcast.net
; FredNowak at comcast.net ; CTLEPS-L at lists.yale.edu 
	Sent: Friday, August 22, 2008 7:59 AM
	Subject: RE: Butterfly identification help - seen today in
Suffield

	Clay,
	 
	Responses inserted...
	 
	Alex

________________________________

	From: Clay Taylor [mailto:ctaylor at att.net] 
	Sent: Friday, August 22, 2008 6:50 AM
	To: Grkovich, Alex; jhimmel at comcast.net; FredNowak at comcast.net; 
CTLEPS-L at lists.yale.edu
	Subject: Re: Butterfly identification help - seen today in
Suffield
	
	
	Um, Alex, you can't have a "hybrid" within the same species -
simply an intergrade between forms. 
	[Grkovich, Alex] OK, yes, this is probably correct. But the term
"Hybrid" has been employed since the time of Klots (1951) if not earlier
to describe "integrades" between these two subspecies..."Hybrid Admiral"
(Klots), "Hybrid Purple" (Opler) etc.
	 
	To my knowledge, the White Admiral and the Red-spotted Purple
forms occur throughout the range of the species, with the White Admiral
occurring more frequently in the north and RSP in the south, but
altitude also seems to play a role, too.
	[Grkovich, Alex] Essentially, the "integrades occur chiefly in
an east/west band from the latitudes of just north of New York City to
about Waterville Valley, New Hampshire...with a few integrades occurring
southward in the mountains to about Great Smokey Mt. National Park, and
into southern Quebec...They occur from the Transition to the Lower
Canadian Life Zones; in Essex Co., Ontario (where I grew up), which is
Upper Austral Zone, I do not remember ever seeing one - there, one sees
"pure" Red Spotted Purple phenotypes, however, the "Hybrids" are common
about 90 miles further west in Elgin Co., Ontario...
	 
	However, I am puzzled by why you call it a hybrid / intergrade,
etc. - it looks fine for a regular RSP to me. 
	[Grkovich, Alex] It's not, though, that's the problem. There are
some definite characteristics which lean toward the White Admiral in
this specimen, if one looks more closely at it. For example, the more
conspicuous white spots at the FW apex, the difference in the ground
color outside of the white band at the FW apical area, the development
of the white bands...also, I would have liked to have seen the blue
spotband on the dorsal HW...Notice also the conspicuous white spot along
the leading edge of the FW above, which is the initial stage of
development of the white band (there are also traces of bluish-white
scaling further down the FW above, which is also an initial stage of
white band development...)  
	 Here is one taken this June at my house in Moodus - I see no
difference from the one in Fred's photo.
	[Grkovich, Alex] You're right, there is no difference...they're
both "hybrids" (or, if you will, "integrades")...
	    I have only ever seen 1 WA at that spot, and very few in
East Haddam.
	[Grkovich, Alex] White Admirals in typical form should not be
expected (except in isolated individuals) that far south. Western
Massachusetts at ~ 1,000 ft. is the farthest south that I have ever seen
one... 
	 
	Also, I have never seen a crab spider all the way up on a
buddleia flower, so why isn't it simply nectaring? 
	[Grkovich, Alex] Well, it could be, I suppose. But I find crab
spiders frequently on our buddleias...
	   The pictured individual is clearly the survivor of numerous
bird hits, but there is nothing there in the photo to suggest that it is
hanging dead, when the wings usually are held in a weird angle. 
	[Grkovich, Alex] It sure looked like it to me...
	  Come to think of it, I have never seen a crab spider kill and
hold such a large butterfly - it usually is a smaller species like a
skipper, sulfur, crescent, etc.
	[Grkovich, Alex] I have seen a crab spider "eating" a Milbert's
Tortoiseshell...Not quite a Hybrid Purple perhaps, but not exactly a
Sulphur either...I have also had Hybrid Purples on our backyard
buddleias (although Limenitis really do not have very large and heavy
bodies either), and it's not a stretch to assume that one wouldn't get
attacked by a crab spider... 
	 
	Clay Taylor
	Calallen, TX (Corpus Christi)
	ctaylor at att.net 
	 
	 
	 
	 

		----- Original Message ----- 
		From: Grkovich, Alex <mailto:agrkovich at tmpeng.com>  
		To: jhimmel at comcast.net ; FredNowak at comcast.net ; 
CTLEPS-L at lists.yale.edu 
		Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2008 9:54 PM
		Subject: RE: Butterfly identification help - seen today
in Suffield

		Not exactly, John (as you no doubt know). It is in fact
a Hybrid Purple (or Hybrid Admiral), a "cross" between the southern Red
Spotted Purple (Limenitis arthemis astyannax) and the northern White
Admiral (or Banded Purple, L. arthemis arthemis)...This one is either
form albofasciata or proserpina (not sure which one, but I think it may
be proserpina), and it appears to have been caught on this flower by a
crab spider (although the spider cvannot be seen in the photo)...
		 
		For those that don't know, the Red Spotted Purple and
White Admirals are considered to be two subspecies of the same species,
and hybrids such as these occur in a wide belt from (at least) southern
Connecticut to as far north as along the Kancamagus Highway in northern
New Hampshire (a few have been found even in southern Quebec)...In this
specimen, one can see the typical coloration (more or less) of the Red
Spotted Purple, with traces of the white bands of the Banded Purple...
		 
		Watch for "Red Spotted Purples" with the submarginal
band on the dorsal HW solid blue (rather than green or greenish blue),
in squarish blocks and without iridescence (which is characteristic of
the Red Spotted Purple), and rather strongly coppery colored
below...These, even though there is no real trace of white banding
(except along the FW leading edge) are also in fact Hybrids, and are not
"pure" Red Spotted Purples; this phenotype (common in CT, Rhode Island
and eastern Massachusetts) represents the "first stage" of the integrade
from Red Spotted Purple to White Admiral, along the southern edge of the
hybrid zone between the two subspecies...
		 
		Alex

________________________________

		From: owner-ctleps-l at lists.yale.edu on behalf of JH
		Sent: Thu 8/21/2008 8:34 PM
		To: FredNowak at comcast.net; CTLEPS-L at lists.yale.edu
		Subject: Re: Butterfly identification help - seen today
in Suffield
		
		
		It's a Red-spotted Purple. 
		 
		John
		 
		 
		Visit my webthingys at:
		www.johnhimmelman.com <http://www.johnhimmelman.com/> 
		www.connecticutmoths.com
<http://www.connecticutmoths.com/> 
		www.ctamphibians.com <http://www.ctamphibians.com/> 

			----- Original Message ----- 
			From: Fred Nowak <mailto:FredNowak at comcast.net>

			To: CTLEPS-L at lists.yale.edu 
			Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2008 7:48 PM
			Subject: Butterfly identification help - seen
today in Suffield

			I have a birding friend that I have been
encouraging to become a butterflyer. Today he took the photo in the
attachment at his home in Suffield and he wants to know what it is. I
have four butterfly books but they do not have a compelling answer.
Would someone please identify this butterfly?
			
			Fred Nowak
			East Hartford
			
			
			
			

			
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