esta pareja viene de Guayquichuma
wingspan : male 30/32, female 32/36 mm
a common butterfly, seen from Mindo to Puerto Quito and at las Golondrinas.
common as it may be we do not know much about this butterfly, several Anthanassa species, but also Telenassa species, are quite similar, and for Anthanassa drusilla subspecies there are big discrepancies between what you read in the litterature and what you see on the ground.
nevertheless we believe this butterfly to be Anthanassa drusilla lelex, but we present two sheets : forms with a narrow HW band, and forms with a wide HW band - see new facts page.
there are seven subspecies of Anthanassa drusilla, three are restricted to Venezuela, and another one to Southern Peru and Bolivia, and the remaining three should be found in Ecuador.
of those three, one, alceta, flies East of the Andes, so we're down to two for Western Ecuador :
- Anthanassa drusilla drusilla the type of which comes from Cordillera de Mérida in Venezuela, that would fly from Panama down to Ecuador, and which is characterised by a wide HW band and strong FW markings, all of it a rather strong orange,
- Anthanassa drusilla lelex, the types of which, male et female, come from Panama and Guatemala, that would fly from Mexico to Panama, and which is characterised by a really narrow HW band and weaker FW markings, all of it yellow, sometimes a pale beige.
so far, so good, but - 1 - we never found drusilla drusilla outside Western Venezuela (from Tachira to Maracaibo),
- 2 - we found lelex in Western Ecuador, where it is not supposed to fly?
what conclusions can be drawn provisionnally ? for drusilla drusilla it would probably be enough to amend its distribution ; for lelex it's a more difficult question as, if we did find specimens that match the types, we also found specimens, in large numbers, with a yellow HW band but much wider ; and these wide band specimens are not visibly different from the Anthanassa drusilla from Mexico, which, although being classified as ssp lelex, present, for the vast majority, wide HW bands, unlike the lelex type - it should also be noted that the"wide bands" occur in Central America too, but we do not know in which proportion ?
last point, in Ecuador Occidente the distribution of these "narrow bands" and "wide bands" seems to be quite different ; we found the "narrow bands" in the North, at las Juntas and from la Carolina to San Lorenzo, and the "wide bands" not only in the South of our survey area, Mindo, Pedro Vicente Maldonado, but also much farther South, at the limit between the Provinces of el Oro and Loja.
given that situation, and to play it safe, we present two sheets, "A. dr. lelex narrow band form" and "A. dr. lelex wide band form", which is certainly not satisfactory, but we do need a serious revision if we want to go ahead.
1 & 2 - M & F Mexico - photos Jim Brock 2009 sur ButterfliesofAmerica
3 & 4 - type M Panama*, type F Guatemala**
5 & 6 - M & F Ecuador Occidente
7 & 8 - M & F Ecuador Occidente
9 & 10 - M & F Cordillera de Mérida
*Anthanassa drusilla lelex TYPE, TL: Panama
Photo taken by Gerardo Lamas and digitized by the Tropical Andean Butterfly Diversity Project, funded by the Darwin Initiative.
Any use of this image, except for personal study, requires prior written consent of the housing institution.
**Anthanassa drusilla lelex TYPE, TL: Guatemala
Photo taken by Gerardo Lamas and digitized by the Tropical Andean Butterfly Diversity Project, funded by the Darwin Initiative.
Any use of this image, except for personal study, requires prior written consent of the housing institution.
