Meadow Brown query

[Rambling Rob]

Hi,

I'm pretty sure this is a female Meadow Brown but it has more orange on the tops of the hind wings than others I've seen. Is this quite a variable feature?



Thanks, Rob

[ChrisJB]

I see what you mean. But yes, a female meadow brown.

Chris

[GuyF]

What a beautiful individual, like a Gatekeeper x Meadow Brown cross! The natural history museum's Cockayne collection is useful for finding named aberrations, for some of these there's probably a gradient from the normal butterflies to the really extreme forms making it a bit tricky to assign an aberration name to a butterfly, but yours looks very close to ab. postfulvosa here - Cockayne
Nice find anyway Rob!
Guy

[Rambling Rob]

Thanks Chris.

Thanks Guy - useful link to the Cockayne Collection. I'd not heard of that. postfulvosa would seem to describe that hind wing colour.

Loads of Meadow Browns about at the moment but I haven't seen a Gatekeeper so far.

Rob