Polygonia gracilis

[Kondla, Norbert FOR:EX]

There are the usual variety of interpretations in the literature re. whether
or not gracilis and zephyrus are one or two species. I have gone around the
mulberry bush on this issue a good deal over the years and have examined
hundreds of specimens from most parts of the range of these butterflies. I
can sleep well at night with the view that there is one species.  In
southern British Columbia and in SW Alberta there is tremendous variation in
appearance (including within individual populations) and I have not been
able to draw any neat geographic lines where one entity stops and the other
starts.  I have placed images of just three of the phenotypic variants that
fly in my local area on http://www.norbert.eboard.com   
Have a boo if you are interested; do not worry if some of the thumbnails
come up black; just click on the thumbnail anyway and the full image will
appear. Enjoy :-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Norbert Kondla  P.Biol., RPBio.
Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management
845 Columbia Avenue, Castlegar, British Columbia V1N 1H3
Phone 250-365-8610
Mailto:Norbert.Kondla at gems3.gov.bc.ca       
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca


 
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