Spotting

Thanks Martin. I have no idea which way to go!

Hey Shanna you have a tricky one here. I'm reading from Common and Waterhouse for T. onycha; 'hindwing with obscure brown black terminal spots between veins fused with back terminal line...' In short, the hindwing of T. onycha has a grey line along the outer edge joining the grey patches (terminal spots). T. miskini has really only one black spot while T onycha has several grey ones also. I think your sharp camera angle of photo #1 and #2 may partially miss this feature. I vote for the cycad blue but I'm far from certain.

Thanks for your help Jeff. I don't think there are many cycads there (although I am not great with plants) - I seem to recall a lot of eucalypts in this location and apparently there is an endangered casuarina that grows there. The Queensland Parks & Wildlife Management Plan for Noosa National Park describes this environment as: "Open heath (rocky hills). This community occurs on Cainozoic igneous rocks especially rhyolite at Emu Mountain and the rocky knoll on the West Weyba section. The community on Emu Mountain contains several plant species restricted to these rocky habitats (QDEH 1994)."

Don't think its possible to tell from these shots. The Wattle Blue is on average 1mm smaller and is slightly grey than the Cycad Blue. Were there cycads present? The Wattle Blue is also said to prefer "drier, more open forests" according to The Butterflies of australia by Orr & Kitching. I can say it is a male, the female has a wide dark band on the upper forewing. I woud lean towards Wattle Blue myself.

Thanks so much for your help, Daniele! : )

The voting helps indeed. In a case like this I hope that if an expert votes they'll also leave a comment with clear criteria to justify their vote. Let's see:-)

Oh, that's a good way to do it. I never thought of making a suggestion on my own spotting!

You could put a suggestion for the Wattle blue and see how the voting goes. I also hope martinl will visit:-). At the end it may be impossible to say from these shots. At least you'll have Theclinesthes sp. :-)

I can't handle that sort of responsibility! ; )

I agree! You'll have the last call as you;re the one who saw the specimen:-)

But the look at the Cycad Blue from the same site!!! http://www-public.jcu.edu.au/discovernat... I think you need to be an expert to tell... (I'm definitely NOT an expert)!!!

I'm leaning more and more towards the Wattle Blue... look at the specimen on the left at this site: http://www-public.jcu.edu.au/discovernat...

You'd know best as you saw the butterfly:-) I guess you're referring to the eye spots? The amount of white there may vary slightly from one specimen to another... I have a butterfly guide for the Greater Brisbane area but there is no match there. Let's see whether we or others can find a better match:-)

I'm wondering about this one:
Wattle Blue (Theclinesthes miskini) http://lepidoptera.butterflyhouse.com.au...

Thanks Daniele! I had a good hard look at the Cycad Blue already, and I'm not 100% convinced. On the Cycad blue the brown spots on the top of the hindwings near the tail have a really well-defined white border, which isn't present on my specimen. I'm trawling through the Butterfly House website at the moment... there are SO MANY SPECIES that look really similar!!

Hi Shanna! The underwing pattern is very similar to that of the Cycad blue. But I would also check the whole POLYOMMATINAE entry there: http://www.brisbaneinsects.com/brisbane_...