Aberrant female common blue

[Mike p]

This I think is an aberrant female common blue, could someone confirm this for me please.......Thank you for your help. I think I`ve put this in the wrong place sorry.
An aberrant female common blue? brasenose woods, Oxford. by poacher rtd, on Flickr

[David M]

That's quite an insect!

[Tony Moore]

Lovely shot, especially with the yellow showing the antennae so perfectly...

Tony M.

[Allan.W.]

Hi Mike,
That's a fabulous female Common blue,you pictured there Mike, lovely shot, you may like to have a look on the Natural history museum website at the Cockayne collection which has several pages of Common blue abberations on show,a really useful website,unfortunately a lot of Common blue abs; are un-named.
regards Allan.W.

[Gruditch]

I took this one a couple of hours ago. Unlike the surrounding area, these very blue females are common on this site.

Regards Gruditch

[MikeOxon]

This I think is an aberrant female common blue, could someone confirm this for me please.......Thank you for your help. I think I`ve put this in the wrong place sorry.

The double fringe confirms this as a Common Blue. I agree that this is an unusual specimen and I assume it is a female, although the abdomen is quite narrow. It is not that unusual for females to have plenty of blue scales on the upper wing surfaces but this one seems to have virtually no red around the spots.

I think it is a beautiful photo of an interesting specimen.

Gruditch's photo is the more usual type of 'blue' female but it's not clear where it was taken.

Mike

[David M]

I took this one a couple of hour ago.

What interests me with this one, Gary, are the silvery patches at the apex of each forewing.

I've never seen this before.

[Gruditch]

apicta-thetis



I haven't the first clue with aberrations, probably as Mike says, just the usual very blue female we get here. Taken in Hampshire, on private land btw.


Regards Gruditch

[Neil Freeman]

Lovely photos of a couple of beautiful butterflies Mike and Gruditch

I took the photo of the female Common Blue below near Solihull last year and posted it in my diary at the time where it prompted a few comments. Like Mikes, as well as being very blue, it has reduced Orange around the hindwing spots. At the time I had never seen this before and Mikes example is still only the second one I have seen like this.
There did seem to be a lot of very blue females around last year which I remember quite a few people commented on.

Common Blue female - Shadowbrook Meadows Solihull 01.06.2014

Cheers,

Neil

[Tony Moore]

One from last year - not as blue as the others, but the 'bluest' I had ever seen at the time.

Tony M.

[CFB]

Here's the bluest one I've ever seen, in the Alpes-Maritimes in May 2012.

--
Colin

[David M]

This is the most extreme I've ever encountered:

Still, it's nothing like as extreme as those completely lacking the orange lunules.

[bugboy]

Since we're sharing, here's my bluest from back in 2007:

[millerd]

And to chip in as well: this one is from Harmondsworth Moor, near Heathrow. 11th May 2011.

Dave

[Mike p]

Thank you everyone for your help, this year I`m seeing a number of very blue female common blues as well as the normal coloured ones, Once again thank you for your help.

[Gruditch]

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/ ... xonID=8765


Does anyone think this could be my one

Regards Gruditch

[MikeOxon]

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/ ... xonID=8765
Does anyone think this could be my one

This is developing into an interesting thread! When I commented before, Gary, that your pic looked like the 'usual' blue female, I was only referring to the red lunules, which are conspicuously absent on Mike p's initial photo. I've been doing some reading since and most of my books say very little about aberrations in the Common Blue - mostly concerned with underside spots and streaks.

Yours certainly looks like the Cockayne specimen you found but I've not managed to find a full description of 'Apicta-thetis'. The trouble with Abs is that lots of people like to name them and then it turns out that several different names describe the same thing. Hopefully one of our 'real' experts will be along soon

Mike

[Mark Colvin]

Goodson and Read (1969), in their Aberrational and Subspecific Forms of British Lepidoptera, list at least 277 named aberrations of the Common Blue. The description for ab. apicta-thetis is as follows:

Good hunting.

Kind regards. Mark

[David M]

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/ ... xonID=8765


Does anyone think this could be my one

It'll do for me.

Thanks for the attachment too, Mark.

[bugboy]

Not as extreme as some of the previous but I found her this afternoon:

who also had an interesting underside:

Same female underside