In the northeastern U.S., fully-banded forms of the Red-spotted Purple and Banded Purple butterfly species Limenitis arthemis, often referred to as the White Admiral in New England, are found commonly as far south as central Pennsylvania and more rarely further south into Green Ridge State Forest, Allegany County, Maryland. Very rarely, accounts of the White Admiral have been documented even further south into the mountainous regions of western Virginia.
In fact, in the publication "The Butterflies of Virginia" (A. H. and L. F. Clark, Smithsonian Misc. Colls., Vol. 116, No. 7 (1951), two records of fully-banded admiral butterflies are cited for Nelson County (one, a female, dated July 23, 1919 and another, a male, without date), and one record is cited for the Charlottesville, Albemarle County area (a large female, dated October 5, 1941). Mention is also made in this publication of partially banded forms that occur on occasion in mountainous areas in Giles and Augusta Counties.
More recently, Harry Pavulaan cites in his "Checklist of Virginia Butterflies" (1995) a record of the white-banded form (L. arthemis arthemis as opposed to L. arthemis astyanax) in Rockingham County. Now, two more observations, both representing new county records, have come to light remarkably in just the past 1997 flight season. Audubon Naturalist Society member Kathleen Lathrop of Adelphi, MD observed a fully-banded White Admiral in the Warm Springs area of Bath County on August 16, 1997, and the author observed a similar specimen at close distance along the eastern edge of George Washington National Forest (GWNF) in Frederick County somewhat west of Mountain Falls on October 9, 1997.
Dr. Austin P. Platt, entomology professor at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, has performed genetic studies on admiral butterflies as part of his research and has associated form names or labels in his related publications to the intermediate, white-banded variations of L. arthemis. One of the best noted of such forms, which has light bluish marks and narrow white bands on the dorsal hindwing, is termed "form albofasciata" in several of the popular butterfly field guides. Unfortunately, the author of this present note was scouting for larval host plants of other butterfly species at the time and did not have a net in hand to facilitate a determination of the particular form represented by his GWNF-area specimen (C'est la vie).