the butterfflies in this Group are extremely difficult to identify for four key reasons and maybe a fifth one :
- all these butterflies look pretty much the same,
- the original descriptions are very brief,
- most types have been lost,
- there is very little litterature available,
- and maybe these species could prove to be quite variable.
but we have many specimens and pictures, and we have to present them in some way, and, as of today, we cannot have our specimens genitalia dissected, and the question would remain open for the live pictures anyway.
so we tried to progress using only the butterflies morphology and present our approach on the new facts page ; this is the best we can do pending the dissection of our specimens, the barcoding of their DNA and the publication of a good revision of the Genus Hermeuptychia.
we selected three key criteria eventually and an additional one, all on the HWUN :
- 1 . eyespots 2 and 3 are fused, eyespot #2 being much larger, criterion 1-A, (see pictures below)
. eyespots 2 and 3 are distinct, eyespot #2 being somewhat larger, criterion 1-B
- 2 at the tornus, the submarginal line and the postdiscal line meet on the anal margin
. either forming a very acute angle, both lines ends being almost parallel, criterion 2-A, (see pictures below)
. or forming an angle exceeding 45 °, criterion 2.B
- 3 . either the postdiscal line is made of two waves, criterion 3-A, (see pictures below)
. or this line is almost straight, criterion 3-B,
- 4 . when the postdiscal line is almost straight, (criterion 3-B)
. it either makes a sharp turn towards eyespot #4, criterion 3-BA, (see pictures below)
. or it is straight all the way to the anal margin, criterion 3-BB.
theoretically these criteria can produce twelve different combinations : AAAx, AABA, AABB, ABAx, ABBA, ABBB, BAAx, BABA, BABB, BBAx, BBBA, BBBB ; so, if these four criteria were meaningless, if they were nothing but individual variations, all these twelve combinations should be found in Nature.
but, on the field, we only found four of those twelve combinations, hence eight would not exist (subject to further fieldwork), which would mean that we're not dealing with individual variations.
the more so as these four combinations we found on the field have very distinct geographic distributions :
- n° 1 = BBBB - this one flies exclusively West of the Andes,
- n° 2 = ABAx - this one has the largest geographic distribution from la Bonita to las Lagunillas, between 1100 and 2400 meters,
- n° 3 = BAAx - which we found mostly in Napo Province, between 1100 and 1700 meters,
- n° 4 = AABA - only two specimens collected, both from Palmas Anchas, in the South of Sangay NP, at 1600 meters.
