Which Potanthus?

[Psyche]

Horace, do you have an underside shot of the third deformed specimen ?
After looking at Brian's Potanthus I realised I may be over enthusiastic with the ID since it is necessary to bear in mind possible variations.

TL Seow

[horace2264]

You can click on the hot-linked phrase "posted in BC forum" in that post containing the third specimen to get to that pic.

[Psyche]

Thanks Horace. The underside is that of P. juno..
Apart from the hardly darkened veins, the underside hindwing also have the blackish shading not seen in omaha.
http://www.butterflycircle.com/check...wbutterfly/272

TL Seow

[horace2264]

Thanks Horace. The underside is that of P. juno..
Apart from the hardly darkened veins, the underside hindwing also have the blackish shading not seen in omaha.

Thanks, Dr Seow for the ID confirmation.

[Psyche]

I actually saw the underside already & based my ID on that but have forgoten after scrutinising Brian's pic.

TL Seow

[Psyche]

One of the difficulty with skippers is that individual variations make it very difficult to ID.
The Large Dart in the key is ID'ed by its size first, almost 2x the smaller ones.

P. serina always have the FW spot 5 smaller than spot 4.
The female is also known to lose its spot 8 occassinally, ie it has only 2 subapical spots.

These 2 characters are also seen in P. juno, especially the female also tend to have spot 5 < spot 4, potentially a disasterous situation.

Happily, P. serina has the cilia plain, & not checquered like the smaller Potanthus.


Skipper 1 should be female P. juno provided P. omaha do not have a 2-spotter. Have'nt seen one yet.
Skipper 2 is correctly a male P. juno ; spot 4& 5 equal; narrow spot 1b.
Skipper 3 (deformed) looks correct to be a female P. juno ; note spot 5 smaller than spot 4; size will help.


TL Seow