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Tag Archives: aberrant butterfly

An aberrant Gatekeeper

31 Saturday Jul 2021

Posted by sconzani in insects

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Tags

aberrant butterfly, aberrant Gatekeeper, British butterflies, Gatekeeper, Pyronia tithonus var. subalbida

210731 gatekeeper (1)

This striking little Gatekeeper caught my eye during a recent walk. Instead of the vibrant orange hue usually seen in their wings (normal male colouring shown below), this little fellow’s colouring was a pale cream. Looking at the known variations for these butterflies on the UK Butterflies website, this appears to be the aberration subalbida.

210731 gatekeeper (2)

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181/365 An aberrant Meadow brown

30 Sunday Jun 2019

Posted by sconzani in 365DaysWildin2019, insects, nature

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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.

190630 Meadow brown normal female

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?

190630 Meadow brown aberrant female

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About me

sconzani

sconzani

I'm a writer and photographer; researcher and blogger; birder and nature lover; countryside rambler and city strider; volunteer and biodiversity recorder.

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