Tags
#365DaysWild, aberrant butterfly, aberrant Meadow brown, British butterflies, butterflies, butterfly, Cosmeston, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Meadow Brown, pathological aberration
I feel like I should be apologising for featuring butterflies three days in a row but this little butterfly is so interesting that I just had to share it. There are a ton of Meadow browns flitting around the wildflower fields at Cosmeston right now and they mostly look like this – or, at least, the females do.
So, I think you can see why the butterfly in this next photo caught my eye. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get a really clear shot of it, as it kept flying further into the flowers and I didn’t want to trample them, but you get the idea. Thanks to a tweet from UK Butterflies, I now know “This aberration is referred to as ‘pathological’, where wing scales fail to pigment – thought to be caused by some type of damage (physical or chemical) to the pupa. Asymmetrical examples are known too where only 1 wing is affected.” Isn’t it fascinating?
My word, what an exciting find!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Apparently, Meadow browns can develop a huge range of aberrations – who knew? It was lovely little thing.
LikeLiked by 1 person