InsectNet forum

Let's share some pictures of some rare Delias from my collection on the new forum. During the last 20 years, I have built one of the largest Delias collections in the world, it took a lot of time, money, collecting trips and friends to gather these specimens. If you have any questions, I would be happy to answer.

For those who don't know, Delias is the largest butterfly genus with more than 250 species, and some new species are still regularly found in remote areas of New Guinea and Solomon islands.

Let's start with Delias messalina gerrittsi named after our late friend Fred Gerrits.
Here is a female, endemic from New Ireland.

Here are photos of the 4 Delias boxes from the Prasobsuk Sukkit ('Ting') collection:









Photos of most of the collection (all families except Papilionidae) and an obituary (mainly taken by the website admin with my permission) which first appeared on Insectnet and the ICF soon after the passing of Ting on 30 January 2018. are available here:

https://thaibutterflies.com/sukkit-collection/

Adam.

PS. Unusually for Delias, most of the specimens are spread showing the upper side. Normally Delias are spread ventral side up, so this is a rather unusual view of the genus in SE Asia.

PPS. I should also mention that the photos are somewhat compressed horizontally, so the appearance is a little unnatural. This is a product of the website photo editing.

Self collected Delias mysis mysis pair from Queensland Australia

The Delias are surely some of the most beautiful of the Pieridae. I don't normally collect Pieridae, but I do have a small number of species from this family, including Delias hyparete -

Hi Adam
The link doesn't work.

Paul K wrote: Fri Jul 01, 2022 1:47 am Hi Adam
The link doesn't work.

The link is working for me.

Thank you Adam for your link.

Ting was truly a great butterfly/insect collector! His materials include numerous new and interesting species. I noticed some of the family (Papilionidae) or group (for example Zephyrus Hairstreaks of Lycaenidae) are missing in the webpage. If it is possible, I would like to check all.

adamcotton wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 7:10 pm Here are photos of the 4 Delias boxes from the Prasobsuk Sukkit ('Ting') collection:

Thanks for sharing Sukkit's Delias pictures. Ting was one of the few collectors to have seen and caught the rare Delias agoranis.

The rarest Delias messalina ssp in collection is Delias messalina messalina from Bougainville, the only ssp with yellow dots on the HW.
Here is a male.

mokky wrote: Fri Jul 01, 2022 2:25 am Thank you Adam for your link.

Ting was truly a great butterfly/insect collector! His materials include numerous new and interesting species. I noticed some of the family (Papilionidae) or group (for example Zephyrus Hairstreaks of Lycaenidae) are missing in the webpage. If it is possible, I would like to check all.

Ting gave all of his Papilionidae collection to me several years before he passed, so there are no boxes of Papilionidae. There are actually many more boxes that do not appear on the website, mostly containing specimens Ting collected in India, Nepal, Burmaand some from other countries. There are also a number of boxes of mixed butterflies and at least one full of green Zephyrus group specimens, which I guess are Chrysozephyrus.

Adam.

Are “rare Delias” rare because they are in fact rare in nature, or rare because they are from inaccessible locations? Knowing nothing of Delias it seems many simply aren’t easily obtainable

I would answer it depends.

- some are from inaccessible locations :
. remote areas : let's say all the rare species from New Ireland, New Britain, Choiseul, Bougainville... we know where to find them but it costs tons of dollars to go in some specific mountains (plane + guides + sometimes helicopter to reach some summits)... of course the selling price is high.
. national parks : some Delias like Delias maaikeae or Delias vietnamensis pequini are known from National Parks only. So nearly impossible to collect.
. nearly unknown areas : some flies in unexplored areas like the Delias from the Foja Mountains in Papua (only one expedition went there in the 90ies)

- some are from easy locations but rarely shows up, they must stay in the canopy 99% of their life :
. Delias agoranis from Thailand is a good example.
. Delias fioretti from the Pass Valley (Papua) is another (if we consider the Pass Valley an easy location...).

- some females are still unknown to science (cumanau, maaikeae, laknekei...), they stay in the canopy and can't be lured or baited.

- some Delias species are thought to be extinct :Delias maudei, Delias bosnikiana from Biak island.

- some Delias species may in reality be rare natural hybrids (Delias nakanokeikoea)

- some are still unknown to science. Dozens of New Guinean mounts haven't been explored yet by entomologists.

For their rarity and high popularity among collectors, a lot of Deliasare sold above $1,000.00 per specimen and few has even reached $10,000.00.

On the Delias website, the extremely rare species in collection have a black dot next to their latin names (less than 10 specimens known) and the rare species a red dot. An example with Delias cumanau : https://www.delias-butterflies.com/spec ... as-cumanau

Looking at your website I did not see any representatives from New Britain or New Ireland like Delias bagoe.

Are they still a work in progress or did I somehow overlook them during my search of the website ?

Delias madetes. Two male specimens of the nominate subspecies from New Ireland

Delias aganippe. Pair. New South Wales, Australia
Delias argenthona. Pair. Queensland, Australia

Thanks for the info. Amazing. Glad to see there are still butterflies to be discovered. I just got back in phone range after a successful day chasing north americas largest undescribed Papilio. Getting there is half the battle; finding the right spot is the other half. So I understand

Chuck wrote: Fri Jul 01, 2022 7:24 pm I just got back in phone range after a successful day chasing north americas largest undescribed Papilio.

I look forward to a new thread about that.

Adam.

Chuck wrote: Fri Jul 01, 2022 7:24 pm Thanks for the info. Amazing. Glad to see there are still butterflies to be discovered. I just got back in phone range after a successful day chasing north americas largest undescribed Papilio. Getting there is half the battle; finding the right spot is the other half. So I understand

I'm on the edge of my seat!

Wow Dave,

You really "reeled-in" some VERY colorful species of these. They are phenomenal in their splashes of yellows and reds mixed with browns and whites.

I don't have any Delias myself and I have only run across a smattering of them in collections here of which I've only encountered the common ones. Seems like the best ones are rare or hard to obtain.

Seeing these makes it easy to understand why collecting them could become infectious !