Butterfly identification help - seen today in Suffield

Clay Taylor ctaylor at att.net
Fri Aug 22 14:13:39 EDT 2008


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.

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.  I 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 
  To: Clay Taylor ; 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 
    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
    www.connecticutmoths.com
    www.ctamphibians.com
      ----- Original Message ----- 
      From: Fred Nowak 
      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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