Male

Junonia divaricata ssp

Female

Junonia wahlbergi ssp

 

Junonia of the evarete Group fly from the USA to Argentina and on all Caribbean Islands under many names, sometimes pointless.

the only serious knowledge of this Group comes from the work of Neild (Venezuela) and particularly Brévignon (French Guyana) ; so we used it as a base for our identifications, keeping in mind that Ecuador is clearly not French Guyana.


on the Eastern slopes of the Andes we would have at least two species, but neither one looks like any taxon described in Lalita and Christian Brévignon paper (october 2011).


the first species (top), not common in the Oriente Ecuatoriano - slender butterflies, light coloured and with a blue wash on the wings - we follow Andrew Neild in thinking it is Junonia divaricata, although it is different from the three divaricata subspecies described by Brévignon.


the second species (bottom), rather common - stockier and darker butterflies with heavy orange markings and that are reminiscent, Andrew Neild says, of Junonia evarete huebneri Kirby - we think it is the Eastern Ecuador subspecies of Junonia wahlbergi.

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