Heteronympha merope (Common Brown)

Heteronympha merope merope
Heteronympha merope duboulayi
Heteronympha merope salazar

Other Common Names

Western Brown (WA subspecies)

Notes

For a time I found this to be a very frustrating species, as I couldn’t get any half-decent photos of it. The butterflies would land, flash their wings until I got close, and then either fly off again or sit tight with their wings closed until I got bored and moved on.

To add insult to injury, one would occasionally land on my arm and sit with its wings open whilst I tried to get the camera focussed on it, but the butterfly would always fly off before I managed to do so.

Eventually I began to have more luck. I found that as the afternoon wore on they would congregate around the trunks of certain trees, and as the sun weakened the occasional specimen would pose for photos.

For several months, I only had pictures of females, because I didn’t start this project until March and the males die off earlier in the year. But in late October the males began to emerge, and I was able to get some photos of them. They are very difficult to approach, if anything more difficult than the females.

In October 2008 I found males of ssp duboulayi at Lesmurdie in WA – they had slightly different markings to the east coast version, and were significantly smaller.

In January 2019 I saw males of ssp salazar in Hobart, close to the bottom of Mount Wellington and near the top of Mount Nelson.

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