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University of Tennessee Biological Field Station
August 8-10, 2008
 
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Photo#140272
Aphrodite? - Speyeria cybele

Aphrodite? - Speyeria cybele
Atchison County Fish Lake, Atchison County, Kansas, USA
August 26, 2007
maybe Speyeria aphrodite?

Images of this individual: tag all
Aphrodite? - Speyeria cybele Aphrodite? - Speyeria cybele

Cut to the chase
Clearly a Great Spanged Fritillary, in Kansas I doubt you'd find anything else to confuse it with.

 
I agree - Great Spangled
The thick cream band makes it an easy ID with every eastern fritillary I've seen.

I'd say
maybe either Aphrodite or S. cybele. This one looks a bit borderline between the two, at least to me. In Butterflies through Binoculars (East), Glassberg describes the dark brown on the hindwing as stopping short of the outer border of the post-median silver spots in the Great Spangled, and extending past the post-median spots, making the cream-colored band look a lot more narrow in the Aphrodite. See Butterflies through Binocs (East), Plate 28. The images Glassberg uses make this difference seem very distinct, with the cream band being very narrow in his Aphrodite, but in all of the Guide images here, it looks considerably wider. In the Guide images here, though, it's fairly obvious that the brown extends beyond the outer margins of each of the silver post-median spots...but in yours, the brown seems to extend beyond some of the spots, and stop even with, or even before, the outer edges of others. Does anyone know if these guys hybridize at all? Also, in BtB, Aphrodite's range isn't shown to include Kansas, so if it turns out to be Aphrodite, this could be an interesting record, perhaps? I'm far from an expert, though.

 
Peterson's Eastern Butterflie
Peterson's Eastern Butterflies shows cybele to have brown that stops short of the outer margin of the silver spots except for the forwardmost spot, which is what we see here. For the other spots, some of what you may be seeing is a shadow from the other side of the wing, since it is being backlit. Peterson also shows a yellow spot on the distribution map for aphrodite in Kansas.

 
Thanks!
Yeah this one might go into the limbo of unidentified Fritillaries.. I'm just happy with how sharp it came out!

 
I agree!
Nice shot! I'm only recently starting to get into leps...but I think the bug has bitten me hard (bad pun actually intended)!

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