Wanderer

Description:

Pieridae; Pierinae; Pareronia boebera boebera Eschscholtz, 1821. The butterfly shown here is a female P. b. boebera. I normally don't have too much trouble identifying the butterflies I encounter here in Luzon. It used to be a tremendous struggle (at least for me it was) trying to I.D. everyday specimens, but there is so much more in the way of pictures and information available online these days that it has become pleasurable rather than a struggle. Having said all that, I have to admit that I still have a little difficulty with certain species (mostly subspecies) and this is one of them. The differences between the females of P. b. boebera Eschscholtz, 1821 and P. b. arsamota Fruhstorfer 1910 are very small and one has to be very careful. I always get slightly confused when looking at these two and even today when I started preparing my spotting for Project Noah, I got this one wrong and had to back track to fix it.

Habitat:

I spotted this Wanderer in our back yard around 11:00 am. It was visiting the flower beds, showing particular interest in pink coloured Periwinkles

Notes:

Pareronia boebera (Eschscholtz, 1821) is endemic to the Philippines according to Wikipedia. Wiki also lists the 6 subspecies and rather helpfully tags on the Provinces in which they are present. The list starts with the ssp. shown here Pareronia boebera boebera. So you might ask why do I have a problem deciding which ssp. I am looking at when the only one here in Luzon is indeed P. b. boebera. I should not need to even consider the other ssp.mentioned in description above. Well, I can explain why and if your are interested, you can check on the Wikopedia link provided. Having said that P. b. boebera exists only in Luzon, they show a picture labelled P. b. boebera, Marinduque. For those of you who are not familiar with Philippine geography, Marinduque is an island Province in its own right. It lies between Quezon Province and the Province of Oriental Mindoro. it is far from Luzon mainland. It is very confusing to use Marinduque in this way, even for Filipinos. If you ask google how many provinces there are in Luzon, it will tell you 30 provinces in Luzon, but 38 provinces if if you include "associated islands". Marinduque is one of those associated islands. Why would Wikipedia try to help clarify a subspecies distribution by using some confusing geographical reference. At this point, I chose to go back to the more reliable method of comparing the pictures. My advice to Wikipedia would be say that Pareronia boebera boebera is present in Luzon and associated islands. I don't think I would have a problem if the information were to be presented like that.