celeno, pura or something else?

[Painted Jezebel]

I have all of these in my Jamides celeno file. However, they each show varying striae, either on the hind or forewings.

Do I have more than one species here?

[Peacock Royal]

These Jamides make me confused. I will dig out some of my shots for comparisons later.

#1 : Shot at Seletar Wasteland in Dec 2010 - this female was laying eggs.
The same specimen as shown in my blog (http://peacockroyal.blogspot.com/2011/01/seletar-wasteland-on-christmas-day-2010.html).
Dr Seow has ided it as J. pura.

#2 : A recent shot along Nanyang Cresecent Road in NTU
It may not be a J. celeno, perhaps a J. pura.

[Painted Jezebel]

These Jamides make me confused.

Believe me, you are not the only one confused!!

[Blue Nawab]

What about this?
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5186/5563502470_7d00ac8c43_z_d.jpg

[Silverstreak]

Whenever I see those striae ..... I know I will have a headache!!:bsmile:

[Psyche]

At the moment I am uncertain as to whether it is possible to separate pura from celeno from just the underside.

I really was hoping someone will show an upperside no matter how blur it is , especially if it is a male. Just the edge of the outer magin(termen) will do.
The female is much harder without looking at the upper part of the hindwing above.

I think the alignment of hndwing striae is still very important if present for pura. Both the Palawan race (on Asahi website) & the Bruneian race shows good alignment.

Les, your 1st is a female & could be pura & the other two are males & looks like celeno, but I cant be sure.

The rest, all females could be pura because of darker spots & broader white striae.

Tyoical male celeno.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-68pJl9n47fs/Ti7ZbboLqmI/AAAAAAAAEfY/5jPkOtWt1jc/s400/DSC0937-Common-Caeculean.jpg
Typical female celeno
http://www.butterflycircle.com/checklist%20V2/CI/mugshots/Jamides%20celeno%20aelianus/Common%20Caerulean%20-%202%20-%20Khew.jpg

As J. pura is not a rare species we must be missing the ID a fair bit.

TL Seow:cheers:

[Psyche]

Here is an image of a female taken in Phuket & ID'ed as Jamides pura by the author from the funet website on Jamides.
http://www.nic.funet.fi/pub/sci/bio/life/insecta/lepidoptera/ditrysia/papilionoidea/lycaenidae/polyommatinae/jamides/pura-1v.jpg

Compare this with the local Singaporean J. celeno female below & those suspected pura.
http://www.butterflycircle.com/checklist%20V2/CI/mugshots/Jamides%20celeno%20aelianus/Common%20Caerulean%20-%20Khew.jpg

TL Seow:cheers

[Psyche]

Anyone know where this pair of mating Caerulean is taken on this website.
(I can't read enough Chinese to save my life.)

The male on the left, through its brokened wing showed the margin of the forewing to be clear & without the black border of J. celeno .

This form of J. pura male is largely from south Myanmar to Malaya. In other areas, a thin black border may be present.
( Possibility of it being J. zebra is highly unlikely. The blue deepens towards the apex in this spp.)

Notice the underside is hardly different from J. celeno male except for the better strial alignment.
http://bbs.chinesedailynews.com/showtree.aspx?topicid=10960&postid=14478

TL Seow:cheers:
PS. About the only difference I can deduced is that there is a more prominent step of the inner margin between the submarginal spots in space 5 & 6 on the hindwing, which suggest, Les, your 2nd male could be pura .

[Wanderer]

its not stated.

[Psyche]

its not stated.

Thank you anyway.
I guess it doesn't matters. What matters is we have the undersides of both sexes of J. pura pura for scrutiny & comparison.

TL Seow:cheers:

[Painted Jezebel]

Thank you for all your hard work. It is unfortunate that Jamides never seem to sunbathe, at least I have never seen them rest openwinged.

[Psyche]

Since the males of the two species are readily differentiated on the upperside forewings, a couple of random high speed shots while they are fluttering around a wet spot will do wonders.

TL Seow:cheers:

[Commander]

Thank you for all your hard work. It is unfortunate that Jamides never seem to sunbathe, at least I have never seen them rest openwinged.

That's true. It would be most unnatural to see one sunbathing in the field. It's not a habit that I've ever observed in all my years of watching butterflies (there was once I encountered an open-winged one though, but that's because it was in the jaws of a spider!)


Since the males of the two species are readily differentiated on the upperside forewings, a couple of random high speed shots while they are fluttering around a wet spot will do wonders.

Looks like there's a need to capture and study some specimens to validate this characteristic to distinguish between the two species.

[Banded Yeoman]

what about this one? Lokks very white... should it be celeno female??

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7210/6948416235_2d26a4a235_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/62936898@N03/6948416235/)
jamides (http://www.flickr.com/photos/62936898@N03/6948416235/) by bluebottlethejon (http://www.flickr.com/people/62936898@N03/), on Flickr

[Psyche]

what about this one? Lokks very white... should it be celeno female??


It does looks like J. celeno female.
Do you have the underside. We are trying to match the upperside with the underside.
Do remember most Caerulean females have similar markings above & flash can make it very white.

Both sexes of J. pura are bluer than the correseponding sexes of J. celeno.
White Caerulean is a misnomer for J. pura.
White Caerulean is the name for J. cleodus, & J. pura was once placed as a subspecies (ie as J. cleodus pura ) which is probably how the name was transfered to J. pura.

TL Seow:cheers: