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Post by deliasfanatic on Feb 1, 2017 21:54:28 GMT
There is surely an error or information that didn't get recorded. The other two ssp of alberti are strictly montane, and there's no reason to think that the one from Choiseul would differ. AFAIK, it's never been collected since 1903; I've never heard of any specimens other than those from Meek. There are sporadic specimens of other species that pop up now and then from Choiseul, and alberti would certainly be among them if it existed in the lowlands.
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Post by exoticimports on Feb 1, 2017 22:05:12 GMT
choiseuli is the scarcest in collections since the island is so seldom collected. Seems no one has collected on that Island to any great extent, since Meek went there all those years ago, and he was only collecting on the coast. Perhaps Chuck can tell us why no one ever visits there to collect. I believe one reason is the natives do not like strangers? Peter. Number of factors.
There was civil upset in the late 1960s.
There was a civil war 1998-2003. Supposedly. Things actually got worse through 2006.
Export of ALL wildlife was suspended ~2002 after some esteemed entomologists came, caught and ran. The exception is if you know the right person.
NO export permits are issued prior to your trip. You want a chance to collect legally? Go there, meet the right people and work on the permit. Figure a week to do that.
Choisul is geographically inconvenient. One (maybe now two) air strips for the whole island. No hotels or anything like that. No Coke, steaks, etc. The people are not accustomed to even tough tourism- so the infrastructure for boat trips and such is unreliable at best.
Only the toughest adventurers will be able to handle the physical and psychological stresses.
All that said, if you want to spend a day collecting in Choisul you'd better plan on 3 weeks for travel, bureaucracy, etc.
Chuck
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cyane
New Aurelian
Posts: 14
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Post by cyane on Feb 2, 2017 0:05:34 GMT
Tennent says in his book "Butterflies of the Solomon Islands" that D alberti alberti is "Known only from a series of specimens taken on Choiseul in the first decade of the 20th century", and that there is no information about its flight/habitat and that its host plant is not known. Whilst googling for information about D alberti I happened across this : collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=record_ID%3Anmnhentomology_11016900&repo=DPLA I've never been to Choiseul and as exoticimports suggests I'm sure it would take a great deal of time and effort to get there. I have been to Santa Isabel twice, in October 2003 and November 2004. I spent 10 days there each time. I collected in several locations including Buala, Tatamba, Kaevanga, Kolomola and Kilokaka. I found Delias schoenbergi isabellae pretty much everywhere. This was the only Delias I saw on Isabel, although I never did get to any great altitude. As deliasfanatic says all that we know about D alberti suggests that it is a montane species. I would be surprised if Meeks specimens did indeed come from lowland areas on Choiseul. Is it possible that Meek had a local collect in the mountains for him ? I remember reading here that Laurie got to Choiseul but due to the attitude of the locals, was unable to collect on Mt Maetambe, where he had hoped to find D alberti (see the thread about D schoenbergi).
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Post by bobw on Feb 2, 2017 0:30:13 GMT
Ted Archer collected on Choiseul in 1974, that's where Ornithoptera victoriae archeri came from, although I don't know exactly where he went.
Bob
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Post by deliasfanatic on Feb 2, 2017 1:30:22 GMT
Tennent says in his book "Butterflies of the Solomon Islands" that D alberti alberti is "Known only from a series of specimens taken on Choiseul in the first decade of the 20th century", and that there is no information about its flight/habitat and that its host plant is not known. Whilst googling for information about D alberti I happened across this : collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=record_ID%3Anmnhentomology_11016900&repo=DPLA I've never been to Choiseul and as exoticimports suggests I'm sure it would take a great deal of time and effort to get there. I have been to Santa Isabel twice, in October 2003 and November 2004. I spent 10 days there each time. I collected in several locations including Buala, Tatamba, Kaevanga, Kolomola and Kilokaka. I found Delias schoenbergi isabellae pretty much everywhere. This was the only Delias I saw on Isabel, although I never did get to any great altitude. As deliasfanatic says all that we know about D alberti suggests that it is a montane species. I would be surprised if Meeks specimens did indeed come from lowland areas on Choiseul. Is it possible that Meek had a local collect in the mountains for him ? I remember reading here that Laurie got to Choiseul but due to the attitude of the locals, was unable to collect on Mt Maetambe, where he had hoped to find D alberti (see the thread about D schoenbergi). Very interesting to see that specimen with a label from Mrs Morgan. It certainly looks like a genuine alberti alberti with its characteristic washed-out appearance. All of the Meek specimens share that appearance; they look faded with age, but since related species don't fade in a similar fashion, they may be much more pale in life than other alberti subspecies. Mrs Morgan was selling specimens in the '60s (I have some), mostly from Guadalcanal. They're in distinctive pastel envelopes (blue, green, pink) with handwritten ink data; the envelopes are made from British Solomon Islands government paperwork, which is legible on the folded envelopes' interior! Last I heard, she is still alive and living in New Zealand. D. schoenbergi is the only Solomons Delias found at low altitude, BTW. I suspect that Isabel's mountains aren't high enough for high-altitude Delias. That's certainly not the case for Malaita, which I think contains undiscovered subspecies of D. messalina and alberti, but apparently the locals are so ferocious that no attempts at collecting in those mountains can be made, even today.
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Post by exoticimports on Feb 2, 2017 13:41:20 GMT
There is surely an error or information that didn't get recorded. The other two ssp of alberti are strictly montane, and there's no reason to think that the one from Choiseul would differ. .
And one wouldn't think Argyronympha rubianensis on Tetepare would be any different, or that Hemileuca maia in upstate NY would live in bogs and eat a bog plant. Hey, you never know.
Without accurate records of what Meek did on a given day, it's impossible to say where the specimens came from. Maybe they landed at the village of one of his guides, who quickly took him up a mountain.
I would not describe Choisulists as dangerous or uncivilized. They, though, know that in most cases a foreigner showing up usually means problems later on. Remember, the white man and later Asian man brought slavery, blackbirding, destruction of forests, theft of traditional property, logging, diseases, war, etc. From the perspective of what is essentially a well-connected stone age tribe, the white/ Asian at the doorstep is not improving anything.
Laurie's experience is typical of one who shows up in a tribal land. Would you let somebody at your front door come in? He says he wants to look for dust bunnies in your closets. Now why would anyone be interested in dust bunnies, something ubiquitous? And what good could come of letting them look in your closets? For the sake of science? What good has come to me from all this purported science? Or, perhaps, he is after something else like most of those other white fellas? Sure, let him look in the closet. Next thing you know your home has been seized for the sake of somebody's good, you're relocated to some shithole, and compensated below market value.
As far as Malaita: it is the most populous of the islands by far. It's a short way from the international gateway of Honiara. Malaitans are industrious and savvy. They are demanding. They are also easy to find and ready to form up a partnership if everyone can profit. You want to go to the mountains of Malaita, go to the bar at Mendana Hotel in Honiara and tell the barkeep you want somebody to take you up into the mountains of Malaita to find butterflies. Then just sit and have a few beers. Your guide will find you within a day's time.
As they say in those areas there are three types of foreigners in country: missionaries, mercenaries and misfits. Which one do you trust?
Chuck
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Post by nomad on Feb 2, 2017 16:41:16 GMT
If you showed me a series of D. alberti, I would of course say because of what we know about the other two subspecies that they were collected in the mountains, but you have to read the factual accounts of Meek's expedition's in his letters and book, he just did not collect in any mountains in any of the Solomon Islands. He reached 3000ft along a river on the north coast of Bougainville during 1907-1908, but there was no virgin forest left because of the high native population. He proposed a mountain expedition to Guadalcanal on that third and last Solomon expedition but it never materialized due to illness, lack of collecting boys, dangerous natives etc. The data on Meek's Delias alberti clearly state December 1903, when he was collecting on the Northern coast of Choiseul, See archive.org/stream/novitateszoologi11lond#page/454/mode/1upYou may also recall that Meek wrote 'The natives of Choiseul are not only savage to strangers, but are no means friendly among themselves'. I am afraid the missing Meek Choiseul mountain expedition just did not happen, it would have been a major victory for him and there is no record of it or of other species of montane birds or insects collected on that Island. After leaving the Tambotambo area, Meek collected at two unspecified locations in 1904, thought to be in the Choiseul Bay area where he made his most famous Solomon Island discovery, the famous Microgoura meeki that unusual large extinct pigeon. John Tennent (2009) wrote that, M. Meeki seems to have been a coastal forest bird. A high elevation habitat seems unlikely, if only because it would have been virtually impossible for Meek to venture far inland on Choiseul at the time of his visit during 1904.
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Post by deliasfanatic on Feb 2, 2017 17:18:30 GMT
The main reason I've considered it next-to-impossible is because of the altitude that most Delias need to survive. There aren't many species in the lowlands because they need the reduced temperatures found at high altitude, and I don't believe I've ever heard of a species that needs low temperature in one ssp and hot lowland in another. There is D. mindanensis, usually considered a ssp of hyparete, but I think it's a separate species. The ongoing Delias DNA work will, with luck, provide an answer to that.
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Post by nomad on Feb 2, 2017 17:36:33 GMT
It is a strange enigma. I have difficulty understanding how a usually mountain butterfly could occur on the coast or just a mile inland along a river ? According to Parker and Meek's letters, book and the data on Delias alberti , that is where he was during December 1903.
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Post by exoticimports on Feb 2, 2017 20:12:27 GMT
Elevation is not the only factor in temperature. Mountainous islands create long-standing weather patterns including high-shade areas, cloud forest, and cool downdrafts. This may induce a species to be comfortable a lower-than-expected altitude. Furthermore, a high pressure system can radically cool higher elevations, driving animals down the slopes.
Again, I defer to Hemileauca maia, which thrive in dry forests and eat oak...unless it's the bog population.
The good thing is that here we are, from the moon to the bottom of the Pacific, and there are still mysteries for the adventurous to chase. Who's going to Choisul? Not me, I'm going to Raro.
Chuck
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Post by nomad on Feb 3, 2017 12:14:05 GMT
Further Specimens of Papilio Woodfordi from the collections made in the Solomon Islands by C.M. Woodford and A.S. Meek. During his first visit to the Solomon Islands in 1886, Charles Morris Woodford caught a number of female specimens of a large black and cream Swallowtail on Alu and Fauro Islands in the Shortland group, which Frederick Godman & Osbert Salvin (1888) named Papilio Woodfordi in his honour. Woodford writes in A naturalist among headhunters, The Papilios most observed, both from their large size and the frequency of their occurrence, are large black and cream coloured ones belonging to the group which the Malayan Gambrisius and Aegeus may be considered the types. This group is represented in the Solomons by many species. Each Island seems to posses its own, and our list is probably far from complete. Those hitherto recorded are Bridgei from Treasury Island, Woodfordi from Shortland Islands, Laarchus and Prospero from Rubiana, Ariel from Ysabel, Ptolychus and Hecataeus from Guadalcanar, and Erskinei and Tryoni from Ugi.
During the period 1886-1887, when Woodford was collecting in the Solomon Islands, each different Island race of Papilio Woodfordi and other butterflies were considered to be a separate species as Trinomial nomenclature had yet to be introduced. Woodford's third expedition to the Solomon Islands in 1888, was mainly concerned with historical matters, he was interested in plotting the route and the landing places of Mendana and other early Spanish explorers on Ysabel Island (Santa Isabel). Woodford sailed along the east coast of Santa Isabel, stopping now and again to explore. What Woodford did find, was that coast of Isabel was nearly depopulated through the head-hunting raids of the war-like natives of Roviana lagoon, New Georgia. However, Woodford did take his net with him, he writes, "I caught one butterfly, a large Papilio, which turned out to be a new species P. Ariel". Woodford's capture of a male Papilio woodfordi ariel was made at Estella Bay, Santa Isabel and the specimen was described by Grose-Smith in 1889. Alfred Stewart Meek first arrived in the Solomon Islands on board the ship Titus to collect for Walter Rothschild Tring Museum during 1901. Woodford the Resident Commissioner, now based at the small Tulagi Island near Nggela, joined the Titus and met Meek on his way back to his residency. Meek was put ashore at the Roviana lagoon, New Georgia, where he joined his collecting party consisting of George Eichhorn, E.E. Perry and seven collecting boys who were mainly from New Guinea. Eichhorn his older brother-law, had been seriously ill with malarial fever and Meek had arrived in the Islands a month after he had intended due to a debilitating illness from his previous expedition to New Guinea. Leaving Rubiana in Meek's vessel the Calliope, his party set sail for Aola, Guadalcanal where he made a large collection. From there, Meek went on the collect for five weeks at unspecified coastal sites on Santa Isabel. On Meek's second expedition to the Solomon Islands, visiting Rendova early in 1904 with his younger brother-law Albert Eichhorn, Meek took specimens of P. Woodfordi laarchus Godman & Salvin, 1888, which had previously discovered by Woodford on New Georgia in 1887. Papilio Woodfordi Specimens taken by A.S. Meek and C.M. Woodford from the OUMNH collections. Papilio Woodfordi Godman & Salvin, 1888. Fauro Island, Solomons. Captured end of August and early September by C.M. Woodford. Ex Godman & Salvin collection. Papilio woodfordi ariel Grose-Smith in 1889. Ex Grose-Smith coll 1910. Ex Joicey & Talbot coll. No collectors name but either taken by Woodford or Meek. P. Woodfordi laarchus Godman & Salvin, 1888. Rendova, A. S. Meek. Ex Joicey & Talbot collection. Papilio woodfordi ptolychus Godman & Salvin, 1888. Aola, Guadalcanar, C.M. Woodford. Ex Joicey & Talbot collection.
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Post by exoticimports on Feb 3, 2017 12:54:06 GMT
Woodford is amongst my favored collectors. Keep it up! And thank you!
Note that Woodford claimed Isabel depopulated by the warriors from Roviana. And, even today, Solomon Islanders will admit that the Rovianans were the most fierce warriors. However, Meek apparently had no problem there.
Yet, a less than a generation later their beautiful beach on the most stunning bejeweled lagoon would be mined for the sand to build a runway.
Given the changes since 1900, particularly in the types plants along the coast, I assume that P. woodfordi was not as common then that it is today, so it must have been quite the thrill to find!
Some 100 years after Woodford, JT examines a specimen of P. Woodfordi in Roviana.
Chuck
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Post by wollastoni on Feb 3, 2017 13:28:54 GMT
f you showed me a series of D. alberti, I would of course say because of what we know about the other two subspecies that they were collected in the mountains, but you have to read the factual accounts of Meek's expedition's in his letters and book, he just did not collect in any mountains in any of the Solomon Islands. He reached 3000ft along a river on the north coast of Bougainville during 1907-1908, but there was no virgin forest left because of the high native population. He proposed a mountain expedition to Guadalcanal on that third and last Solomon expedition but it never materialized due to illness, lack of collecting boys, dangerous natives etc. The data on Meek's Delias alberti clearly state December 1903, when he was collecting on the Northern coast of Choiseul, See archive.org/stream/novitateszoologi11lond#page/454/mode/1upYou may also recall that Meek wrote 'The natives of Choiseul are not only savage to strangers, but are no means friendly among themselves'. I am afraid the missing Meek Choiseul mountain expedition just did not happen, it would have been a major victory for him and there is no record of it or of other species of montane birds or insects collected on that Island. After leaving the Tambotambo area, Meek collected at two unspecified locations in 1904, thought to be in the Choiseul Bay area where he made his most famous Solomon Island discovery, the famous Microgoura meeki that unusual large extinct pigeon. John Tennent (2009) wrote that, M. Meeki seems to have been a coastal forest bird. A high elevation habitat seems unlikely, if only because it would have been virtually impossible for Meek to venture far inland on Choiseul at the time of his visit during 1904.If you want to know my theory about this mystery : - alberti is a mountainous species, I see no reason for it to be a lowland species on Choiseul. And if it was, it would be common in collection like schoenbergi. - Meek never reached the mountains of Choiseul, I am sure he would have said it in his memories if he did I am sure he sent locals to the mountains or the locals came to him. I am sure the news of a team of white men with butterfly nets arrived in all villages of Choiseul in less than 2 days, especially if they offer you iron goods for butterflies. It was common practice in all biological expeditions.
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Post by timmsyrj on Feb 3, 2017 14:18:57 GMT
choiseuli is the scarcest in collections since the island is so seldom collected. Seems no one has collected on that Island to any great extent, since Meek went there all those years ago, and he was only collecting on the coast. Perhaps Chuck can tell us why no one ever visits there to collect. I believe one reason is the natives do not like strangers? Peter. Ted Archer was there in 1974 for a while. Rich sorry just seen that Bob has already stated this
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Post by wollastoni on Feb 3, 2017 14:26:12 GMT
BTW are there some Delias sp. which are both lowland and mountainous species in the same country ? Like Aglais urticae in Europe.
I am trying to find one example, but cannot find any.
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