Post by nomad on Mar 17, 2013 0:56:08 GMT -8
Here are some extreme British Butterflies Rarities from a friends collection. With the limited number of butterflies to collect in Britain, varieties or aberrations were highly prized by collectors and even today extreme forms would fetch some very interesting prices. Included here are amazing aberrations of the extinct British of Maculinea arion [Large Blue] subspecies eutyphron which are rarely seen outside of the large museums. Also shown are some very early specimens from the little known Barnwell Wold in Northamptonshire, which was one of its earliest recorded localities in Britain.
It must be mentioned, although collecting pressure was heavy, the loss of Maculinea arion as a whole in the U.K. was not due to collectors but due to the changes in its habitat which bought about by the reintroduction of that very horrible disease Myxomatosis in the rabbit population and the changes of grassland grazing by farmers with their livestock. However without doubt the very heavily collecting of small localized populations of M. arion by Victorian collectors and Dealers [ who were legion] led to its ultimate demise in those vulnerable localities. Barnwell Wold in Northamptonshire was a wonderful locality for butterflies with a unique assemblage of butterflies that were not to be found elsewhere in Britain. Here M. arion was very localized being found in just one field that adjoined a wood. In the wet summer of 1860 one London dealer encamped at Barnwell Wold and took 200 m. arion. From this the Large Blue never recovered and was soon extinct in that locality. However what is not often mentioned by those who seize upon this fact, is that M. arion was doomed there anyway because the field where this lovely butterfly flew went under the plough and is now a cornfield. As is well known, the Large Blue has been successfully been reintroduced with the nominate stock from Sweden and is doing very well due to a better understanding of its requirements.
Below specimens of M. arion from Barnwell Wold in the 1850's, rarely seen in collections.
It must be mentioned, although collecting pressure was heavy, the loss of Maculinea arion as a whole in the U.K. was not due to collectors but due to the changes in its habitat which bought about by the reintroduction of that very horrible disease Myxomatosis in the rabbit population and the changes of grassland grazing by farmers with their livestock. However without doubt the very heavily collecting of small localized populations of M. arion by Victorian collectors and Dealers [ who were legion] led to its ultimate demise in those vulnerable localities. Barnwell Wold in Northamptonshire was a wonderful locality for butterflies with a unique assemblage of butterflies that were not to be found elsewhere in Britain. Here M. arion was very localized being found in just one field that adjoined a wood. In the wet summer of 1860 one London dealer encamped at Barnwell Wold and took 200 m. arion. From this the Large Blue never recovered and was soon extinct in that locality. However what is not often mentioned by those who seize upon this fact, is that M. arion was doomed there anyway because the field where this lovely butterfly flew went under the plough and is now a cornfield. As is well known, the Large Blue has been successfully been reintroduced with the nominate stock from Sweden and is doing very well due to a better understanding of its requirements.
Below specimens of M. arion from Barnwell Wold in the 1850's, rarely seen in collections.
Attachments:
The full drawer of aberrations of the extinct British race of M. arion.
