Blue patch Papilio paris

[lordpandarus]

I got this a few years ago on ebay. Unfortunately it didn't survive the postage.

I'm not sure of the data but I think it came from China. Is there a ssp. of P. paris where the patch is always deep blue like this (like P. arcturus)or is this just a freak specimen?


I haven't seen another one like this since

Attachments:

[robert61]

I remember that I had one some years ago, maybe it is the one you have,I do not remember to whom I sold it.I believe it was from Yunnan .
Robert

[lordpandarus]

I don't think it was you

[Adam Cotton]

This could be a specimen of Papilio paris wittmanni (Schaeffler, 2004) described from Renshou, Sichuan. That subspecies has a deep blue hindwing patch according to the original description, but I haven't actually seen any specimens myself yet other than the photos in the original description.

Adam.

[bobw]

I bought a series of P. paris from China many years ago and all of them had a blue hindwing patch rather than the normal green, very much like the specimen shown. I distinctly remember it as I hadn't seen one with such a colour before. Unfortunately I disposed of them some time ago and can't remember what part of China they csme from.

Bob

[timmsyrj]

First two rows on the left are karna then the specimens in the third row are from Sichuan province and are rather blue, I believe it's s.sp wittmanni, very large specimens, female is at the bottom which is almost tamilana size.

Attachment Deleted

Attachment Deleted



Rich

[Adam Cotton]

In reality wittmanni is probably just a synonym of chinensis Rothschild, 1895. Here's the original description of chinensis from W China:

This form comes very close to typical paris; the patch of the hindwings,
however, which is smaller, is of an obviously deeper blue colour, and seldom reaches the
discocellular nervules; the spot between the second discoidal and the upper median
nervules is much smaller than in paris and of a triangular form, being almost
restricted to a point at the upper median vein.
The bluish green line connecting the patch of the hind wings with the abdominal
margin is mostly discontinuous; the first (postcostal) spot of that patch is often
absent, as in many individuals of P. paris.

Note that Rothschild specifically mentions the much deeper blue colour of the hindwing patch compared with ssp. paris.

It may be that specimens from Renshou, the type locality of wittmanni, are even deeper blue than elsewhere. This certainly needs further study before coming to definite conclusions.

Adam.

[timmsyrj]

The right hand row of Paris, next to chikae and hermeli in my first photo are from yunnan which I believe is chinensis? I was told when I bought the wittmanni that they are much larger than chinensis, which they are, but is this enough to warrant different s.sp? or is it seasonal?

Rich

[Adam Cotton]

Mar 17, 2014 6:29:49 GMT -8 timmsyrj said:

The right hand row of Paris, next to chikae and hermeli in my first photo are from yunnan which I believe is chinensis? I was told when I bought the wittmanni that they are much larger than chinensis, which they are, but is this enough to warrant different s.sp? or is it seasonal?

Rich

Size is certainly seasonal, with spring form specimens normally considerably smaller than the summer generation. Where in Sichuan are your wittmanni from, and when were they collected? As for your Yunnan paris, they do look like chinensis, but again it depends where in Yunnan they come from.

Yunnan is a very interesting province, as the main river valleys (Irrawaddy, Salween, Mekong and Yangtze) all flow through NW Yunnan, but are effectively isolated from each other by high mountain ridges which most butterflies cannot cross. This is especially the case with the Yangtze river system, which bends eastwards instead of south. Many butterfly subspecies can cross between the Irrawaddy, Salween and Mekong river systems much further south, but not all of them. As a result there is a large difference in the butterfly fauna within Yunnan, especially between the Yangtze river system and the others.

This is most noticeable in NW Yunnan near SE Tibet, where the 4 river systems run parallel to each other in a north-south direction. The butterflies from only a short distance away in the next valley are totally isolated and quite different.

In the case of Papilio paris, the nominate subspecies occurs in the Irrawaddy, Salween and Mekong valleys across Yunnan and in the Red River valley (running eastwards to Hanoi) further south; but ssp. chinensis is found in the Yangtze valley, which is the easternmost valley in NW Yunnan and the northern border area further east in the province.

If you follow the rivers from the location a butterfly was collected you can soon see which main river system the locality belongs to, so for instance Lijiang is on the Yangtze system, but Weixi is in the Mekong system.

Adam.

[lordpandarus]

In timmsyrj's picture , the patches are "blue-green"

As you can see the one I posted is a dark, pure blue, even darker than P.arcturus or P.ulysses . It was a small specimen , around 7 cm wingspan. It looked like that in the flesh and not due to the camera lighting

Unfortunately I tossed it away since it was broken

[Adam Cotton]

The photos of the types of wittmanni are also deeper blue than Rich's specimens, although not as deep blue as the specimen you "tossed away". You would probably do the same to a lot of specimens in my collection - each to his own, I guess.

Adam.

[lordpandarus]

I regret it now, because I don;t think I'll see another one anytime soon

I think it's an undescribed ssp. from an isolated part of China. The guy who sold it to me (he was from the US I think) probably got it from a lot of other butterflies and didn't pay attention to it. Also a few years ago a lot of random people from China were selling wild caught butterflies on ebay...so who knows where it came from

[timmsyrj]

Adam, I got them from Daniel Wu with data as, banna, chengdu, Sichuan prov. in 2006. If this is actually the collecting site or the home of the dealer as I'm finding to be quite a common occurrence.
I use flash on all my photos which does have a tendency to alter colours somewhat, especially with irredescent scales.

Rich

[Adam Cotton]

Mar 18, 2014 10:19:54 GMT -8 timmsyrj said:

Adam, I got them from Daniel Wu with data as, banna, chengdu, Sichuan prov. in 2006. If this is actually the collecting site or the home of the dealer as I'm finding to be quite a common occurrence.
I use flash on all my photos which does have a tendency to alter colours somewhat, especially with irredescent scales.

Rich

Banna is on the east side of Chengdu town just outside the ringroad around the city, but inside the ring expressway. Do a search on Google Maps for "Banna, Chengdu, Sichuan, China" and you will find it.

There is a large green space just south of Banna called Shiling Forest Park, so perhaps P. paris may occur there, but I wouldn't like to be certain, and would certainly fear for the long term viability of the population in a concrete sea. If these are from Chengdu area itself I would expect them to be ssp. chinensis.

Do your Yunnan specimens (you didn't say where in Yunnan these came from) and these Banna specimens look significantly different (other than size) to your eyes, in other words without the effects of flash photography?

Adam.

[lordpandarus]

The one I posted would be the same blue with a flash or not, you can see the contrast with the green scales on the forewings

I'm surprised none of the Papilio collectors here have a similar specimen . To me it looks much different than timmsyrj's specimens


In all the years buying on ebay,I've only had 2 shipping incidents. Shame it happened to be this one