Remember my photos of the Clodius Parnassian from our trip to Loney Meadow? Well, it looks like it was a mated female . According to the Web site of the Idaho Museum of Natural History, "Females, if they have mated, have a white pouch (called a sphragis) at the tip of the abdomen. Placed there by the male, it contains the sperm and important nutrients and prevents the female from mating again." Hers was pink, not white, but what else could it have been? According to what I've gathered from the internet, which would never lie :-) "sphragis" is Greek for "seal" or "seal-stone" -- something that you would use to stamp your wax seal on something.
Ta ta for now,
Sylvie
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