Such variation in this species!!

[oslari]

Take a look at the variation in the marcellina subspecies of Phoebis sennae. What's crazy its that a few weeks ago I had seen an extremely orange female. My netting skills were extremely off that day and I wasn't able to catch her, even though she came back to the same spot again and again. One of my biggest collecting regrets. 

(Copy and paste the link into browser to see the photo) 
media.discordapp.net/attachments/639102209296039976/881369374097817640/image0.jpg?width=528&height=1058
 
Left and right are females, middle is a male. 

[trehopr1]

Though, I cannot speak for the " marcellina" subspecies of P. sennae; I can say that the females are variable in the background color with some females appearing more whiteish whilst others more yellowish or even orange appearing.

I am only able to pick up the species in the southern counties of my state (ILL.); as the species is a butterfly of late summer occurrence. It's also a true challenge to capture. It never sits long pollinating and is far too fast to get in a good swing.

I have never captured an orange looking female but, I'm sure they exist.

The females of the much larger and related species P. philea have two very distinct color forms of females which one could easily mistake for being two different butterflies.

*Some of the yellow form females of P. philea practically border on the color of the Cuban P. avellaneda species !

[oslari]

Aug 29, 2021 12:57:49 GMT -8 trehopr1 said:

Though, I cannot speak for the " marcellina" subspecies of P. sennae; I can say that the females are variable in the background color with some females appearing more whiteish whilst others more yellowish or even orange appearing.

I am only able to pick up the species in the southern counties of my state (ILL.); as the species is a butterfly of late summer occurrence. It's also a true challenge to capture. It never sits long pollinating and is far too fast to get in a good swing.

I have never captured an orange looking female but, I'm sure they exist.

The females of the much larger and related species P. philea have two very distinct color forms of females which one could easily mistake for being two different butterflies.

*Some of the yellow form females of P. philea practically border on the color of the Cuban P. avellaneda species !

Wow, very nice! Perhaps next summer I'll go looking for these "orange" females. Currently I have 5 perfect specimens (4:1 ratio of male to female) so I don't think I'll be heading back for more until next season. All specimens I've collected have been wild. The trick to netting these are to go mid-late morning (probably times 9:30-10:50) when they still are drowsy and need nectar. The house a few blocks from me has a giant field of salvia so I asked if I could net specimens from their field, and they allowed me to do so. It helps a lot with collecting fresh species like the gulf frit, giant swallowtail, and of course the cloudless sulphur. 

[oslari]

The ones I caught are being exchanged for east coast Saturniidae species so I won't have the ones I displayed anymore soon.

[58chevy]

There is another Phoebis species, P. agarithe, found in Florida & southern Texas (possibly also S. AZ). The males look exactly like the males of P. sennae except the upperside is orange instead of sulphur yellow. The females (upperside) are white or yellow-orange with brownish markings, pretty variable. In flight the yellow-orange variation looks like an orange sennae. Oslari, I don't know where you saw the orange female sennae, but it could have been agarithe if you live in FL or TX.

[oslari]

Aug 29, 2021 16:17:44 GMT -8 58chevy said:

There is another Phoebis species, P. agarithe, found in Florida & southern Texas (possibly also S. AZ). The males look exactly like the males of P. sennae except the upperside is orange instead of sulphur yellow. The females (upperside) are white or yellow-orange with brownish markings, pretty variable. In flight the yellow-orange variation looks like an orange sennae. Oslari, I don't know where you saw the orange female sennae, but it could have been agarithe if you live in FL or TX.

I live in Pasadena, CA and Denver, CO so either of those states wouldn’t have agarithe. It’s cool to see that the orange sennae could look like another species though