Chalkhill Blue and Adonis Blue aberrations.

[nomad]

My friend has just finished curating his extensive British blue Lycaenidae collection in which he is specializing at the moment . His collection of Polyommatus [Lysandra coridon] and L. bellargus is very large and he has many rare aberrations of these species. Most of the Chalkhill Blue aberrations were named by using , A Monograph of the British Aberrations of the Chalkhill Blue [1938] by Percy M. Bright and H. Leeds.  In the field these rarities were much sought after by the Victorian collectors. I hope that Lycaenidae collectors and others will enjoy viewing these.

The first complete drawers are male upperside aberrations of L.coridon, the second female aberrations.

L.coridon.


L. coridon.

[nomad]

One of his Chalkhill Blue underside aberration drawers.

[wollastoni]

I love collecting Lysandra aberrations!
It is really hard to find some, but you can do this even in not rich entomological areas (like NW France).

Here is a Polyommatus coridon Form Syngrapha + Aberration arcuata I caught in Fontainebleau.

The Monograph of the British Aberrations of the ChalkhillBlue is one of the best entomological book I have ever read ! I bought it few months ago from a British bookstore.

Attachments:

[nomad]

Wollastoni, very nice specimens, you were lucky to capture those.

[wollastoni]

It is one single specimen Peter (recto/verso)

[nomihoudai]

I liked the pictures very much and I enjoyed the butterflies, thanks for posting, but I must say that I find the "names" rather funny,...infrasemisyngrapha? Lol.

[wollastoni]

Claude, those names are not "funny" as you say.
You should read this book to see how those namings have been cleverly done, it was a brilliant classification of all Polyommatinae aberrations and forms. It was a life work for some very knowledgeable entomologists.

Those people did not do this for fame or for money but just to try and classify and understand all those recurrent forms and aberrations. Before their work, nobody really understood which aberrations and forms were common, which were rare.

Then most of these forms and aberrations are genetic and are still today a very interesting topic of study for researchers about the fantastic adaptation ability of those blues. This work is a fantastic tool to try and understand which are linked, which are not.
A friend from a US university who studies Lycaenidae's genetics told me it is one of the book they use a lot.

I am not saying all forms and aberrations of butterflies has to be named (it would be a nightmare), I am just saying that doing so to study the most variable species of the European fauna is very interesting.

They add "infra" to the form name "semisyngrapha" when the form concerns only the HW.
By doing so, you can see which forms are always full on HW and FW and which are not... then you can try to think why ?

This book and classification is a fantastic tool, as long as you use it cleverly.

[bobw]

Jul 2, 2013 16:00:03 GMT -8 nomihoudai said:

I liked the pictures very much and I enjoyed the butterflies, thanks for posting, but I must say that I find the "names" rather funny,...infrasemisyngrapha? Lol.

Yes, the names are a bit over the top, but as Olivier says they tried to be consistent in their application. The big question is - why bother? I know some obsessive coridon ab collectors and even they are hard-pushed to recognise a lot of these specimens as anything other than typical. Very few of them are genetic and many just have a missing or misshapen spot on the underside. I know a few people who have the odd drawer from the Leeds & Bright collection and very few specimens stand out.

It does seem to me to have been an exercise in over-specialisation.

Bob

[nomihoudai]

I must still say that I find the names funny, the names, not the achievement of these people well understood. I can very well understand why these people did this. I wrote that "I must say that I find them rather funny" and not a general statement like "These names are funny". A combination of 7 terms (Polyommatus+(Lysandra)+coridon+coridon+infra+semi+syngrapha) amuses me.

Rgds Claude

[wollastoni]

bob < sure some forms with only one spot missing are rather boring and common...

But some coridon aberrations are interesting.
Ab. radiata :

[wollastoni]

Or the ab. striata I caught last month (here on bellargus) :

[wollastoni]

For those of us who are "field collectors", looking for Polyommatinae aberrations is a very hard (let's say 0.5% of Polyommatinae are aberrant) but very pleasant "hunt".
I had to catch and release more than 200 bellargus before finding this aberrant male.

You can find rare aberrant Polyommatus even in very poor entomological places where only common species fly.

[bobw]

Certainly some of the extreme aberrations are spectacular. I used to know someone who caught P. icarus with only slightly enlarged spots, and by selective breeding got extreme "radiata" at will in about 4 or 5 generations. He got 3 or 4 generations a year and kept them going for many years - obviously he had to outcross now and again to strengthen the stock. The results were spectacular and other aberrations regularly popped up in the stock.

Breeding to enhance such genetic oddities is certainly very interesting.

I've also known a few collectors who were obsessed with finding aberrations in the wild. They would generally go to a strong colony of a species such as coridon and find the spots where they roosted at night. They'd spend the evening there with a torch and could examine hundreds of specimens in a couple of hours. They'd take the few specimens they wanted and didn't have to disturb the rest. Of course it's not always easy to find the roosting sites and you're only going to find underside aberrations.

Bob

[wollastoni]

Very interesting Bob !
Didn't know that coridon roosted in some spots at night.

[bobw]

Hi Olivier

Yes, a friend took me to a well-known very large colony in Surrey at about 8:00 p.m., albeit about 25 years ago, and most of the colony roosted in one area of about 50 square metres. There must have been over 500 individuals and we inspected most of them in a couple of hours. There were lots of minor spot aberrations and quite a few "caeca", but I think he took 3 or 4 good underside abs. Obviously you're not going to find many "syngrapha" or other upperside abs. although he did find a few by just touching them so they briefly flashed their wings open.

Bob