British Fritillary aberrations.

Some extreme and unique rare aberrations of the fast flying Argynnis aglaja in this box, including those amazing vars, ex Kershaw collection.





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mmm, lovely! Thanks for sharing those.

I spent a couple of hours on Sunday doing some surgery on a Stockley-bred male A.paphia, a lovely extreme aberration that had been sadly museum beetled. Fortunately enough of the thorax remained to hold the wings in place, so had to do some judicious butchery of a self-bred male A.paphia to donate half a thorax and an abdomen! All looking tip-top now.

I'm sure you're right about specimens lost to neglect and sheer bad luck - I imagine some unique historic aberrations are long-lost to us. I have a number of 100+ year old type aberrations that I'd be especially unhappy to lose.

(Note to self - I really ought to get the macro lens out this winter and digitally catalogue all of my collection. If an act of god or museum beetles were to rob me of any or all of the collection, at least the scientific record wouldn't be denuded. Come to think of it, that could be the genesis of a brilliant book - if one was to produce a 21st century, photographic version of Frohawk, Russwurm and Harmer's great publications... It'd need supervised access to as many private collections as possible, digital photographs taken of as many aberrations and their data labels as possible... some time compiling the 'best-of' photos and organising them into plates... and then go down, probably, the online print-on-demand route...)

Anyway, I digress! (But if anyone's interested, PM me. I have the camera gear and the skill to use it, and have done both self and university press publishing in the last couple of years).

The A.paphia surgery was delicate stuff - the left hand side of the thorax was completely gone, as was the abdomen, and the whole of the inside of the remaining half of the thorax. It was holding together with a wing and prayer! I dismantled an unset male A.paphia, and using a scalpel cut a section of thorax to fit the missing piece. Glued that in, and injected a little glue to fill the hollow half of the original thorax and hold the specimen properly to the original pin. A tiny drop of glue to lift and hold the left hindwing into place as this was almost unattached. And finally a new abdomen glued on.

Not as good as an A1 original specimen, of course, but the wings, head and half the thorax are original, and both antennae are still there. And it's satisfying to have saved it from complete disintegration. I'll get the camera set up this weekend and take a photo to post here. Shame really I didn't think to do a before and after montage. It was a kind gift from a good friend, and I'm delighted to have it in my collection anyway.