North Sulawesi

[Psyche]

P. corvus corax has not been recorded from mainland Sulawesi and Neopithecops neither.
I spent hours in afternoon reading through "The higher classification of the Lycaenidae - by J. N. Eliot" and couldn't find anything. He did not mentioned that hair brushes on legs is an important secondary character for the classification of Lycaenidae but genitalia(male and female), wing (shape, venation and pattern), head (antennae, eye, palpi and proboscis), legs (spur and esp. structures of segmented fore tarsus) and male secondary sexual characters (component of scales of varied brands, shape of androconia but these features have to examine under scanning electron microscope). The only genus has very hairy legs is Catapaecilma (C&P 4 page 295) but the wing pattern and other characters are totally different. Meantime, id as Pithecops sp. will be more appropiate.

Teo T P

Thanks Teo for all the hard work getting the extra informations.
If only P. phoenix is left, LC's Quaker could be a variant or perhaps it is really something new. (size of this unknown)

TL Seow

[Glorious Begum]

Thanks Teo for all the hard work getting the extra informations.
If only P. phoenix is left, LC's Quaker could be a variant or perhaps it is really something new. (size of this unknown)

TL Seow

Thanks Dr Seoq amd Teo. This is tiny similar to our Quaker here.

[Painted Jezebel]

Thank you both of you, Seow and Teo. This has been a fascinating discussion. I must admit to be completely in the dark with these two. The smaller, dark spotted species, does look like a Pithecops sp. Yet, at the same time so does the larger golden spotted species. Nevertheless, we have to look at what has been recorded from the area. Are these two the same species or not, personally, the answer is Not, but I could be, and, far too often, am wrong.

Sulawesi still has a lot to be discovered, I think.

[teotp]

Seow, LC and Les : Not at all.
A revision lesson on classification of Lycaenidae for me.

An article I received from Prof. Otaki entitled: "Color-pattern modification and speciation in lycaenid butterflies" (Transactions of Lepidoptera Society of Japan vol 54 : 197-205, 2003) also reported many aberrant lycaenid butterflies caught in the field, the spots on ventral hindwings showed aberrations include Everes argiades, Euchrysops cnejus, Zizeeria maha, Plebejus argus Scilitantides orion and Pithecops fulgens.

Teo T P