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Post by neominois on Aug 4, 2017 22:50:54 GMT
Hello everyone. I have a few swallowtails that I just need confirmation on. It seems I start second guessing myself a lot when it comes to these Indonesia specimens. Hope all my posts don't annoy anyone! Seram
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Post by neominois on Aug 4, 2017 22:52:01 GMT
2. Morotai
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Post by neominois on Aug 4, 2017 22:52:40 GMT
3. Seram
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Post by neominois on Aug 4, 2017 22:53:19 GMT
4. Seram
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Post by neominois on Aug 4, 2017 22:54:08 GMT
5. Kei Dulah
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Post by neominois on Aug 4, 2017 22:54:58 GMT
6. Bacan and Seram
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Post by deliasfanatic on Aug 4, 2017 23:14:18 GMT
1 - P. memnon (female) - not native to Ceram, but seems to have been introduced and/or is being bred there. As to ssp, it looks most like christianae from Belitung. Perhaps Adam has heard whether that's the ssp that is now being sold from there. 2 - P. deiphobus deiphontes 3 - P. g. gambrisius (female) 4 - Pachliopta p. polydorus 5 - P. fuscus thomsoni 6 - P. fuscus fuscus (Ceram); fuscus lapathus (Bacan)
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Post by neominois on Aug 4, 2017 23:32:38 GMT
1 - P. memnon (female) - not native to Ceram, but seems to have been introduced and/or is being bred there. As to ssp, it looks most like christianae from Belitung. Perhaps Adam has heard whether that's the ssp that is now being sold from there. 2 - P. deiphobus deiphontes 3 - P. g. gambrisius (female) 4 - Pachliopta p. polydorus 5 - P. fuscus thomsoni 6 - P. fuscus fuscus (Ceram); fuscus lapathus (Bacan) Thanks, you are awesome. I wasn't sure on P. fuscus... Interesting there are 2 ssp. in my specimens.
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Post by deliasfanatic on Aug 5, 2017 1:02:43 GMT
It seems that almost every island has its own fuscus subspecies!
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Post by neominois on Aug 5, 2017 1:18:13 GMT
It seems that almost every island has its own fuscus subspecies! Yes, I now have four ssp. of P. fuscus!
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Post by deliasfanatic on Aug 5, 2017 4:26:15 GMT
There are a lot of ssp, especially if one considers canopus and others to be ssp of fuscus (I do), rather than species on their own. I find it a fascinating species, with a huge amount of variation between ssp. I suppose it can't be called "popular" since it's mostly brown, rather than bright and showy like many other Papilios, which is unfortunate since it's so interesting.
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Post by Adam Cotton on Aug 5, 2017 8:29:19 GMT
I agree with deliasfanatic on his replies and comments, and Papilio fuscus is very interesting indeed.
One point, P. memnon has actually been known from Moluccas for a long time. Talbot (1929) named it from Obi as ssp. nestor (which is a junior homonym btw) but it's just introduced ssp. memnon from Java imported on Citrus plants.
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Post by deliasfanatic on Aug 5, 2017 13:10:12 GMT
I agree with deliasfanatic on his replies and comments, and Papilio fuscus is very interesting indeed. One point, P. memnon has actually been known from Moluccas for a long time. Talbot (1929) named it from Obi as ssp. nestor (which is a junior homonym btw) but it's just introduced ssp. memnon from Java imported on Citrus plants. Interesting - I hadn't noticed the Talbot name previously. I wonder whether another introduced ssp may have mingled with it; I've compared the specimen illustrated here to mine, and it looks much more like my females from Belitung than any from Java/Bali.
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Post by Adam Cotton on Aug 5, 2017 14:17:07 GMT
I agree this female doesn't look like typical Javanese memnon. It is quite likely that people moved Citrus plants eastward from a number of different places in western Indonesia and of course the result would be more variation than the original parent forms. Males and most of the females from S. Moluccas look very much like ssp. memnon rather than those from the Lesser Sunda Is just to the west.
Another important consideration is natural selection. My breeding studies have shown how easy it is to "create" new phenotypes over only a few years by selection of particular forms over others. If the predators in Southern Moluccas are reacting differently to the forms of female memnon than predators further west, then forms that may not commonly occur in nature in the west could easily be common in the east.
A good clue to the origin of these would be DNA analysis. When I was doing the recent Menelaides study I deliberately didn't choose any samples from S. Moluccas because they were obviously not native, but comparison of DNA from Moluccas and other subspecies should provide evidence for the origin of these - an interesting future project, I guess.
Adam.
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