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Post by johnnyboy on Dec 6, 2021 1:39:07 GMT -8
I'm sorry that you have been scammed in this awful way and lost so much money. The only positive that I can see is that you can display the fake specimen in the museum, showing the unaffected green patches in the top inner part of the hindwings as per you photo, and perhaps give a paragraph of how the specimen was likely faked by exposure to strong short wave UV light in order to sell it for 10 times it's normal value. This is interesting in itself.
Thanks
Johnny
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Post by exoticimports on Dec 6, 2021 5:04:24 GMT -8
Chuck, do you have any pictures of these natural occurring blueish Victorias ? I do not deny that a few abberant examples may exist but, I have a hard time believing that any of them would truly be (as blue) as any of the fake examples that I have seen pictured over these last 10 years. Maybe there is some recessive gene at work on the "very few" that show any hint of blue. I have probably seen near 50 (male) specimens of all the various Victoria subspecies in my time (in at least 10 different collections); and never saw a one that had any hint of blue in it. I did however, run across three with the red highlights on the wingtips. I don't. I was an early adopter of digital cameras, the challenge being that a $100 memory card only held about 30 photos. So I had to be very selective. Real niclasi verso looks pretty much like any rubianus. The recto green is replace by medium blue/ blue-green. Nowhere are they purple, as you seen in the fakes. Ranongga Island has long bred OV rubianus for the butterfly trade. As in at least hundreds every year. Occasionally they'd get niclasi, though at least 20 years ago they weren't trying to fix the strain. As mentioned, I also had at least one niclasi from Rendova Is. I have none in my reference collection. Those I had I sold, figuring I could get more, and I did, which were stolen by USFWS. OV are extremely variable. Forms (I don't know the names) with red streaks, and yellow or green replaced by gold are not uncommon in the wild. Take a batch of 100, and 30% will be some abberation, some form or another, or will look like a different ssp. I presume most of the abberations/forms go first to Japanese and Russian collectors, then Europe, and North America gets the left-over normal stuff. Chuck
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Post by trehopr1 on Dec 6, 2021 9:59:05 GMT -8
Thank you for your informative reply Chuck !
This is all very interesting since it is coming from someone who has seen perhaps a few hundred go through his hands.
Because this species has always been my "personal" favorite amongst the Ornithoptera; can you tell us anything more about the other various subspecies that others may find equally interesting ?
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Post by exoticimports on Dec 6, 2021 16:19:38 GMT -8
Thank you for your informative reply Chuck ! This is all very interesting since it is coming from someone who has seen perhaps a few hundred go through his hands. Because this species has always been my "personal" favorite amongst the Ornithoptera; can you tell us anything more about the other various subspecies that others may find equally interesting ? That should be a different thread, and I suspect one already exists.
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