Bilateral Gynandromorph

Equally rare, if not even more so than the elusive iole, a recently eclosed A.ilia bilateral gynandromorph. I thought I would share some pictures for you all to see and enjoy. A fantastic and interesting beast.

Some interesting and unexpected findings. Firstly looking at the pupal case, the male opening is clustered to one side (section IX), while the female genital opening is still contiguios through section VIII.

Although generally considered to be equally split down the middle, when looking close up at the business end of the actual specimen, we see that the male does actually have a complete pair of claspers, but both of these are clustered on one side of the abdomen and I fail to find any sign of a female opening.

Looking close up at the vestigial front brushes (which can be used to sex non-sexually dimorphic Nymphalidae species), it is excellent to see the presence of the extra tarsal segment (with claw) on the female side.