Pieris napi aberrations

[nomad]

To the layman in Britian all white butterflies are known as cabbage whites because they know that the caterpillars are pests of their vegetables in their gardens. Pieris brassicae and Pieris rapae are certainly pests but the dainty Green-veined White, Pieris napi is certainly not and is a charming little insect that I look forward to seeing again each spring along the hedgerows and woodland rides. There is much seasonal variation and in Britain some authors recognize three subspecies. These are ssp sabellicae [ Stephens 1828 ] from England and Wales, ssp thomsoni [ Warren 1968 ] from the Highlands of Scotland and britannica [ Muller & Kautz [ 1939] from Ireland. In the late 1930's and 1940's captive stock was bred from a then excessive rarity caught in Donegal, Ireland, this lovely bright yellow form of P. napi made its way into many collections. Cross-pairing with the yellow and other races has produced a multitude of amazing aberrations in this species. Below is a selection of aberrations of Pieris napi from the Clive Pratt collection. I am sure there are many other interesting forms and races across Europe.

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[nomad]

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Pieris napi aberrations

[nomad]

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Pieris napi aberrations.

[Deleted]

Magnificent napi vars Peter, I have a few of these, the yellow form is beautiful.

[Deleted]

[nomad]

Nice to see you have a few of the Irish yellow forms dunc. I remember buying a few on a visit to Watkins and Doncaster for what would be today, be a VERY cheap price. I like all these yellow vars especially those that are almost devoid of markings.

[Deleted]

all of mine are very old, for sure not cheap any more.

[nomad]

Yes dunc these specimens would not be cheap to buy today. I am glad you liked the post Jonathan. Does anybody know if any of these yellow varieties have turned up elsewhere in Europe or are they only known from Ireland. I see that there are a few quite distinctive subspecies in Europe, the Atlas mountains and west Asia.

[nomad]

That's a interesting occurrence of ab sulphurea in Hungary. I believe these yellow forms of P. napi are very rare in the wild and that a collector in Ireland was lucky to get a strong breeding strain going of this lovely variety. It seems the collector in Hungary tried to get other yellow forms from breeding this female but it behaved as a simple recessive [ Ford 1945 ].

[fred2802]

Fantastic drawers ! Want to see more

[fred2802]

I see some specimens have no black pigments and instead are translucent, I suspect this not to be natural but intenionaly removed with acetone Q-tip or somethign else.
I have a similar brassicae from old english collection ... do you have any information about this ?

[nomad]

All of the Pieris napi aberrations shown here were produced naturally by selective breeding many years ago, including the very pale varieties and were certainly not produced with the aid of chemicals. Nearly all of the aberrations shown were named when they were first obtained through breeding. I am pleased that you liked Clive Pratt's superb P. napi ab drawers. Other fascinating aberrations from the Clive Pratt collection coming soon.

[nomad]

All the very pale abs shown here were mostly bred in Tullybeag, Co Donegal in the 1940's. The white vars with almost no markings are ab pallidus and the yellow vars devoid of markings are ab sulphuraea pallidus. All natural and all rare beautiful specimens with original data.

[nomad]

It does seem those rare Pieris napi aberrations were readily availiable from the great British butterfly farmer, L. H. Newman. Here is his British/ European Butterfly livestock list from 1953 showing those napi abs. The eggs and larvae were sold by the dozen [ 12 ] and the pupa individually.

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Page from L. H. Newman's great book ' Living with Butterflies '. [ 1967 ]

[o0osteve]

Thought i would post this pic here it isn't a aberration but a subspecies its Pieris napi segonzaci from the High Atlas in Morocco.
Just purchased them from ebay