Mannii is an attractively-marked butterfly principally occurring in the south-east in France where it can be quite common in the far south. It always seems to me to be a very clean white with strong black markings and an appealing lemon yellow unh. It is polyvoltine (multiple brooded) with the first brood being more lightly marked than the summer brood (second generation), perhaps more evident in the female where the summer brood is very heavily marked (as in 46578).

Mannii is very similar to the Small White (P. rapae) but there are some distinguishing features:

1) in the summer brood in particular, the mannii upf apical mark is thicker than rapae and reaches down to vein 4 or 3 (rapae reaches only to v6 or v5) and the outer edge of the forewing black spot in s4 is either concave or flat (quite pronounced in 17908), whereas rapae is convex. In my experience this mark in mannii is usually flat rather than concave.

2) the mannii unh is less yellow than rapae and there is a light dusting of grey scales around the cell (see enlarged 17921 below); in mannii this dusting is broadly across the whole surface but in rapae it is mainly below the cell area.

3) the mannii forewing margin is more rounded than rapae.

4) the rapae (below left) forewing vein 7 is forked at the end, mannii (below right) is not. This fork may be very small, such that a detailed enlargement may be needed to see it. (But see the comments on 7965 on the rapae page).

ref

sex

observations

alt. m

7987

M

a male of the summer brood.

900

17908

M

a heavily marked male of the summer brood.

1120

17921

M

a male of the summer brood, probably the underside of 17908, and rather paler yellow than normal.

1120