Degreasing and species ID

[Patrick Foley]

Niklas,

Based on Larsen, T. B. 1996 The Butterflies of Kenya, your specimen appears to be
Salamis cacta cacta. The locality (Uganda) also supports this subspecies
(Carcasson 1995). The Larsen photograph is of a male upper wing, and it differs
only from yours in that Larsen's has a larger hw area of orange and purple blurred
together. Larsen says that the underside is extremely variable.

Warning: I am not an African specialist, just interested in biogeography.

Patrick Foley
patfoley at csus.edu

Niklas Wahlberg wrote:

> Hi,
>      I recently received a bunch of cool African species of Nymphalinae for
> my molecular work. One of the species was sent unidentified and after
> extracting the DNA from it, I've spread the specimen and put it's picture
> up at http://www.zoologi.su.se/research/wahlberg/Nymphalinae/cacta.htm . I
> have two questions, 1) can anybody confirm my ID that it is Salamis cacta?
> 2) the butterfly is totally greased over on the top (which is why it is so
> difficult to ID), how does one degrease butterfly wings? I know this was
> discussed sometime back, but I can't remember when. Any info would be welcome!
>
> Cheers,
> Niklas
>
> Niklas Wahlberg
> Department of Zoology
> Stockholm University
> S-106 91 Stockholm
> SWEDEN
>
> Phone: +46 8 164047
> Fax:   +46 8 167715
>
> http://www.zoologi.su.se/research/wahlberg/
>
>
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