Thanks for that information, Mike. When it comes to abs, Piers is the man!
I'd never heard that name given before so I chased it up on the internet and found a monograph on Vanessa (
http://si-pddr.si.edu/jspui/bitstream/1 ... Lo_res.pdf) which includes in its list of 'synonyms' (see below) for
Vanessa atalanta the following:
Pyrameis atalanta aberration
bialbata Cabeau [excluded name, type 2], 1911, p. 22.—Bang-Haas, 1926, p. 55.
Vanessa atalanta variety
bialbata.—Lhomne [excluded name, type 3], 1923. p. 51.
Pyrameis atalanta form
bialbata.—Gaede [excluded name, type 3], 1930a, pp. 199-200; 1930b. pp. 199-200.
Vanessa atalanta form
bialbata.—Lempke, 1956, p. 192.
Vanessa atalanta aberration
bialbata.—Verity, 1950, p. 336.— Chalmers-Hunt, 1960-1961, p. 59.
The frequency is given as one in five in this passage on variation in red admirals (p. 14):
"INDIVIDUAL AND ABERRATIONAL VARIATION.—The ordinary individual variation in this subspecies often consists of differences in color of the lightcolored bands on the upper surfaces of the wings, this color may vary from yellow to orange to red to crimson. Other individual differences are caused by black scaling, which sometimes breaks this same band on the forewing into two or three distinct parts. Also specimens are common in both sexes with an extra white dot in this band in interspace Cu,, and Richards (1946, pp. 21-22) reports that out of five hundred specimens, one hundred had this extra white spot. Aberrational and individual variations have been studied extensively in this subspecies, unfortunately chiefly by persons who gave formal names to the individuals they described. A perusal of the literature and synonymy citations given previously shows that some twenty six writers have given forty-seven formal names to what are sometimes remarkable aberrations and to what are most often slight individual variants. Specimens lacking a particular submarginal white spot, having an extra white spot, having a misplaced marking, or showing any slight difference from the "normal" have received names ad infinitum. These names serve no useful purpose and all are excluded from our formal nomenclature or synonymized in the preceding text. Workers who are interested in these named aberrations should consult Verity (1950, pp. 334-340) and Lempke (1956, pp. 189-191)".
Guy
