Helice?

[PatMoore]

I followed this fast moving Clouded Yellow, (helice?), desperately trying to get a decent picture in a Montpellier park on the 31st of October. There was something unusual about it, but I'm not sure what. Maybe the brightness of the hindwing orange spot or the custard yellow uppersides?
Anyway, so far, I've concluded it's three different species of Clouded Yellow. She was egg laying on clover, it was 22°C and all of my pictures are rushed and not ideal.
Can anyone reduce the species count?

[PatMoore]

Further picture

[bugboy]

Yes that is a Helice Cloudie. The fully enclosed spots on the forewing dark border rule out anything else. Egg laying on clover would also rule out a Bergers if we needed to, since they are restricted to Horseshoe Vetch as a foodplant.

[David M]

Your individual looks to have a slight yellowish hue, which again would rule out alfacariensis as females of that species are a uniform grey with black dusting (plus the uph orange discal spot).

I saw one very similar in Greece a couple of years ago and thought it was extremely unusual.

Even when helice is grey, I always think the best way to distinguish them from alfacariensis is the considerably broader black margins on the upper hindwing, as illustrated by these two images:

Helice - Didier Descouens https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

Alfacariensis - Didier Descouens https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

For that reason (along with the one Paul mentions above), helice has a much duskier look to it when in flight.

[Pete Eeles]

Definitely helice. And Berger's doesn't feed on clovers, leaving only Clouded and Pale Clouded Yellow. The page below might help.

Cheers,

- Pete

[PatMoore]

Absolutely brilliant, thanks for your replies.
Patrick.