Blue patch Papilio paris

I don't think it was you

I bought a series of P. paris from China many years ago and all of them had a blue hindwing patch rather than the normal green, very much like the specimen shown. I distinctly remember it as I hadn't seen one with such a colour before. Unfortunately I disposed of them some time ago and can't remember what part of China they csme from.

Bob

In reality wittmanni is probably just a synonym of chinensis Rothschild, 1895. Here's the original description of chinensis from W China:

This form comes very close to typical paris; the patch of the hindwings,
however, which is smaller, is of an obviously deeper blue colour, and seldom reaches the
discocellular nervules; the spot between the second discoidal and the upper median
nervules is much smaller than in paris and of a triangular form, being almost
restricted to a point at the upper median vein.
The bluish green line connecting the patch of the hind wings with the abdominal
margin is mostly discontinuous; the first (postcostal) spot of that patch is often
absent, as in many individuals of P. paris.

Note that Rothschild specifically mentions the much deeper blue colour of the hindwing patch compared with ssp. paris.

It may be that specimens from Renshou, the type locality of wittmanni, are even deeper blue than elsewhere. This certainly needs further study before coming to definite conclusions.

Adam.

Size is certainly seasonal, with spring form specimens normally considerably smaller than the summer generation. Where in Sichuan are your wittmanni from, and when were they collected? As for your Yunnan paris, they do look like chinensis, but again it depends where in Yunnan they come from.

Yunnan is a very interesting province, as the main river valleys (Irrawaddy, Salween, Mekong and Yangtze) all flow through NW Yunnan, but are effectively isolated from each other by high mountain ridges which most butterflies cannot cross. This is especially the case with the Yangtze river system, which bends eastwards instead of south. Many butterfly subspecies can cross between the Irrawaddy, Salween and Mekong river systems much further south, but not all of them. As a result there is a large difference in the butterfly fauna within Yunnan, especially between the Yangtze river system and the others.

This is most noticeable in NW Yunnan near SE Tibet, where the 4 river systems run parallel to each other in a north-south direction. The butterflies from only a short distance away in the next valley are totally isolated and quite different.

In the case of Papilio paris, the nominate subspecies occurs in the Irrawaddy, Salween and Mekong valleys across Yunnan and in the Red River valley (running eastwards to Hanoi) further south; but ssp. chinensis is found in the Yangtze valley, which is the easternmost valley in NW Yunnan and the northern border area further east in the province.

If you follow the rivers from the location a butterfly was collected you can soon see which main river system the locality belongs to, so for instance Lijiang is on the Yangtze system, but Weixi is in the Mekong system.

Adam.

The photos of the types of wittmanni are also deeper blue than Rich's specimens, although not as deep blue as the specimen you "tossed away". You would probably do the same to a lot of specimens in my collection - each to his own, I guess.

Adam.

Adam, I got them from Daniel Wu with data as, banna, chengdu, Sichuan prov. in 2006. If this is actually the collecting site or the home of the dealer as I'm finding to be quite a common occurrence.
I use flash on all my photos which does have a tendency to alter colours somewhat, especially with irredescent scales.

Rich