Your comments about this Agrias..?

[thanos]

Your comments about this Agrias..?

www.ebay.com/itm/Agiras-pericles-mauensis-male-MOUNTED-SUPER-RARE-ABERRATION-/260912382051?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cbf970063

[wollastoni]

Looks like a nice aberration.

It has been offered on Japanese bidders for same price for about one month with no bid.
I cannot see how he will sell it so expensive.

[africaone]

it looks like a mosaic forms (or gynandro ? I don't knwo the female)

[wollastoni]

I doubt it is a gynandro as female pericles mauensis doesn't have such green patterns. Here you can see variations and forms of pericles : agriasbutterfliesgemsoftheinsectworld.com/amydon/pericles.html

It is indeed a nice specimen, but just an aberration I think. I would be interested to have Manfred's opinion on this specimen if he reads us.

[africaone]

this is clearly a mosaic
then .... of what ?
don't forget a mosaic may be between different form, not only sexes ! I have yet seen a bilateral with one form on the right side and the other on the left side ! Very spectacular. Then no obstacle to extrapolate to mosaic.
what strange is the blue bar in the cell !

[wollastoni]

It does look like a mosaic between A. pericles mauensis and A. phalcidon phalcidon... very strange.

Here are some pics of phalcidon :
agriasbutterfliesgemsoftheinsectworld.com/amydon/phalcidon.html

[nomihoudai]

I guess it would be possible that they have either not discovered that specific form of the female or that they added the wrong female to the wrong species? I would say mosaic gynandromorph too, and not aberration.

[wollastoni]

Well the probability of an unknown female form first discovered on a gynandro specimen looks like 0 to me. :-)

It does look like a mosaic, but I cannot understand what the second part is. If it is phalcidon phalcidon, it would mean they are the same species (which is a possibility)... or it is an hybrid of phalcidon phalcidon and pericles mauensis which had a mosaic genetic problem... also a probability close to 0.

+ repartition are not the same...

Nice topic !!!

[lordpandarus]

I wouldn't be interested in that

To me Gynandromorphs and these weird asymetrical abberations look like flawed specimens

[vwman]

Depends on your value system I guess.

Biologically ... Awesome! Not really a gynandromorph or maybe it is? who knows? Mosaic hybrid? That would be an incredible twist.

For a representative collection... not valuable unless you really like weird abnormal specimens

For a scientific collection... it can go both ways. Valuable again from a biological standpoint or a hybridization standpoint, but on the flip side it may not provide any value as far as distribution or range data.

I don't know about $10 K though. That's for a very specific buyer. Everything is only worth what someone is willing to pay right?

[thanos]

Of course the pattern on the right wings of this Agrias specimen is mosaic, and not normal scaling.
Also, 'pericles' and 'phalcidon' are treated as different subspecies of the same species -of 'amydon'. We have: 'Agrias amydon pericles f.mauensis' and 'Agrias amydon phalcidon f.phalcidon' (this can be seen also on the nice Agrias site of which wollastoni gives the url above).
The blue+green colors of the mosaic pattern on this specimen are of amydon phalcidon f.phalcidon (of male or female,as both sexes of phalcidon phalcidon have this blue+green),and not of the female of pericles (she doesn't have this blue+green) ,as correctly said above.
Without being 100% sure,I think that is a male mosaic between 2 forms(mauensis +phalcidon) of 2 subspecies(pericles +phalcidon) of the same species(amydon), as also the whole body + antennas of this specimen look to me to be of a male..

Thanos

[wollastoni]

But the new classification (M. Spaeth) separated phalcidon and pericles has 2 different species. This new classification is now accepted by most of Agrias collectors.

So this specimen might confirm that this separation was an error.
But if phalcidon and mauensis are sympatric, how come they are 2 different ssp of amydon So the old classification would be false too...

I would not draw any conclusion on this specimen (Agrias classification is far too complicated with all its form / ssp / natural hybridation) but would be interested to hear Manfred's opinion about it.

[africaone]

Olivier
it is strange that none big project (that I know, may be it exists ) was conducted on Agrias with the barcode program.
this has been done with Charaxes with a certain success. Not all groups worked (espacially the black complex and the jasius group) and where it worked, that brought clarification and reliable answers (i. e. the green complex, acreaoides group, ... yet published).
Agrias being a more ancient group, barcode will probably give better results. The few public available data sounds good in this direction.

[wollastoni]

Thierry,

I agree with you that barcodes may help and must be done.
About Charaxes barcoding, Bernard told me it helps sometimes ... and sometimes it gives very strange results. I know the black Charaxes group is a real nightmare.

Problem with Agrias is the high rate of hybridation and local forms. There may be only 4 different species (claudina, beata, narcissus and amydon)... maybe 5 or 6. Personally I use Manfred's revision for my Agrias collection, this revision seems to me the best classification.

All difficult genus should be barcoded just to see if it helps or not... On Delias, we are waiting for some interesting results too.

[africaone]

this is a the reason why may be barcoding may help. Hybridation (if real ?) is just a sign ! This can be seen with barcode (as we do for Charaxes murphyi). it is not a real problem.

I am not an ayatollah of barcoding despite using it largely. i know his limits but I know also how it can help being well used and that sounds good for Agrias (regarding the few available datas). Using it doesn't allow to forget any other tools.