Painted Lady aberration ocellata.Rebel?

[Richard Symonds]

My first posting to this forum.
On 17th September two Painted Ladys were feeding in my back garden in Pendeen, Cornwall on Buddleia. I noticed one appeared to be slightly different from the other. I noticed that the four black spots on the base of the upper hind wings were blue and bordered with black, rather than totally black. A search through literature I believe confirms it as ab.ocellata.Rebel of which an example can be viewed on line from the Cockyane collection in the Natural History Museum
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/data/b ... xonID=8550
I have included a few of my photos I took of it. It remained feeding for around 45 minutes.

[David M]

I saw one of these myself quite recently, but nothing like as well marked as your individual, which shows the most prominent blue spots I've ever seen on this species.