Monday, August 13, 2018

Five-star butterflies





Bernard D'Abrera is a somewhat curious author, photographer and butterfly-collector who has blessed the world with a multi-volume reference work on the butterflies of the world, "butterfly" as in the superfamily Papilionoidea. Skippers need not apply!

This is the second part of "Butterflies of the Neotropical region", and includes the Danaidae, Ithomidae, Heliconidae and Morphidae. The species presentations are extremely short, and all butterflies are shown in pinned position, straight from the collections of the British Museum. No vernacular names are included.

Despite this, this particular volume is nevertheless an excellent collectors' item or coffee table book. The species shown are large and conspicuous. The Morphidae are super-large!

Since these books contain very little "real" information, I'm not sure how they should really be put to use, but this particular volume deserves five stars thanks to the butterflies themselves...

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