{"id":7543,"date":"2019-03-25T10:00:40","date_gmt":"2019-03-25T17:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/?p=7543"},"modified":"2019-03-29T11:31:22","modified_gmt":"2019-03-29T18:31:22","slug":"march-25-morning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/?p=7543","title":{"rendered":"March 25"},"content":{"rendered":"
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2019 March 25
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\u00a0 <\/strong>Jeremy Tatum writes:\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u00a0 <\/strong>Recent photographs of difficult commas (Ron Flower March 20, Mark Wynja March 23) have generated some interesting comments.\u00a0 Cris\u00a0 Guppy \u00a0<\/strong>identifies Ron\u2019s Goldstream Park comma as a female Satyr Comma<\/strong>. Although I originally labelled it as \u201cComma sp.\u201d, I believe the Satyr is more likely at Goldstream Park than Green.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0 The Oreas is more difficult, but Cris Guppy, Mark Wynja and Mike Yip all go for Oreas (Cris cautiously \u201cmost likely Oreas\u201d), and that is how I have labelled it.\u00a0 The underside of Oreas is characteristically dark, though both Mark and Cris point out that the underside photo is backlit, which makes it difficult to judge. \u00a0However, Mark, of course, saw the butterfly in the flesh, so to speak, and was able to see that the underside was dark.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0 As for the \u201ccomma\u201d, the distinct V shape shows unambiguously that Mark\u2019s butterfly is certainly not Satyr or Green \u2013 but does the V-shaped \u00a0\u201ccomma\u201d mark distinguish between Oreas and \u201cZephyr\u201d?\u00a0 \u00a0Opinions differ on this.\u00a0 Cris cautions that he doesn\u2019t find the comma mark to be very useful, because it is very variable. Mike says there are distinct differences in the comma shape in the two species.\u00a0 In the Oreas the comma is more like a V or chevron with pointed tips and pointed base. \u00a0In the \u201cZephyr\u201d the comma has a blunt end and is more of a curve in the middle.\u00a0 Mark\u2019s comma, he writes, is good for an Oreas.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0 For myself, I think I need a good deal more experience before I become confident with these species.\u00a0 In the past I have seen comma butterflies with a very distinct V, and I have called them (not necessarily correctly!) \u201cZephyr\u201d.\u00a0 \u00a0Often it starts out to be very difficult to distinguish between similar species, but after a bit of experience it becomes easy and one can recognize them at a glance by their \u201cjizz\u201d \u2013 that indefinable je ne sais quoi characteristic of a species.\u00a0 I\u2019m not there yet!<\/p>\n

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\u00a0 In the meantime, Mark sends photographs (below) of an Oreas taken in May 2018 at the same place as this year\u2019s.\u00a0\u00a0 Contributors are encouraged to continue to send good photos of all commas.<\/p>\n

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Oreas Comma Polygonia oreas <\/em>(Lep.: Nymphalidae) Mark Wynja<\/p>\n

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Oreas Comma Polygonia oreas <\/em>(Lep.: Nymphalidae)<\/p>\n

\u00a0Mark Wynja<\/p>\n

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2019 March 25 \u00a0 \u00a0 Jeremy Tatum writes:\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Recent photographs of difficult commas (Ron Flower March 20, Mark Wynja March 23) have generated some interesting comments.\u00a0 Cris\u00a0 Guppy \u00a0identifies Ron\u2019s Goldstream Park comma as a female Satyr Comma. Although I originally labelled it as \u201cComma sp.\u201d, I believe the Satyr is more likely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-invertebrate-alert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7590,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7543\/revisions\/7590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}