Butterflies (Steal Street)

[bmathison1972]

Review of the complete set of Butterflies by Steal Street. These are not toys, but rather resin figurines. I have also seen sets of frogs and elephants by them. I first saw these figurines several years ago, at a gas station market in rural Georgia. I bought just one to have a representative and it would be years later before I saw the whole set on eBay. I have recently purchased this set.

There are 12 figures that are not sold as specific species. I even wrote to Steal Street and asked them if they were intended to be certain species, to which they confirmed they were not. Most, if not all, are clearly modeled after actual species and the determinations (and justifications below) are of my assigning.

The figures are roughly 2.5 inches (60 mm) tall and depict the butterfly over a flower of sorts (which are also nicely done).

Sorry the pics are raw; it's getting late and I didn't feel like cropping them.

1. obrina livewing, Nessae obrinus.
This looks to be a fairly solid identification, and a new species for me!

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2. unknown. This one has be baffled. I am sure it was modeled after one of the tiger swallowtails, but there is enough artistic license at work to make a sound ID difficult.

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3. purple emperor, Apatura iris.
I bounced around a couple ideas with this one, including Sasakia charonda. Both species have been made before but I settled on this one.

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4. eastern tiger swallowtail, Papilio glaucus
Despite the lack of tails, I think this is a sound ID based on the color and how commonly this species has been made.

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5. orange sulfur, Colias eurytheme
This is the one I bought back in Georgia. I always liked pierids. Several have this general morphology, but I think my ID is sound.

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6. malachite, Siproeta stelenes
This is another familiar species so I am confident on my ID. My only other figurine of this species is the Franklin Mint one.

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7. common Jezebel, Delius eucharis
This ID looks good, although the color is more akin to what's on the underside of the wings (a phenomenon that happens now and then with figures)

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8. broadly green-banded swallowtail, Papilio chrapkowskoides
I struggled with this one for a while. I kept trying to place it in Graphium, but the shape of the wings didn't sit well with me. I finally started looking at Papilio in the nireus-species group and settled on this one due to color pattern and that it seems to be one of the more widely-distributed species.

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9. red admiral, Vanessa atalanta
This one also gave me some fits. I finally concluded it was a red admiral with which the painter used his or her artistic license a bit extra. However, this could easily be attributed to another Vanessa or even an Aglais.

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10. large tortoiseshell, Nymphalis polychloros
This could easily be one of several Nymphalis or Polygonia but I setted with this common, familiar species.

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11. great orangetip, Hebomia glaucippe
A good fit among all the orangetips, this species has been made in toy for a few times, as adults and as a larva.

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12. great blackvein, Aporia agathon
This one gave me some trouble too. It appears to be a pierid akin to Delius eucharis (above), but most things that look like this again have this color on the underside. I finally compromised with this one

take a screenshot

[Jetoar]

Really wonderful Blaine. Thank you for sharing them  .