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Post by wollastoni on Jan 1, 2016 15:35:23 GMT
Those papers can help if you have to answer customs' curiosity.
Have a nice trip Cosmin, and please post some pictures and a report of your trip on the ICF.
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Post by jmg on Jan 1, 2016 23:52:19 GMT
Dear Cosmin About sojurn and collecting in French Guyane, I wrote many posts on InsectNet.com and ICF : - permits : no needed - car rental - accomodation - monthes to go there - and so on ! Please, check these posts ! The Moutouchi Gîte (Lodge) is a nice place to stay, even if the area is more and more deforested. Anyway, it remains a good spot for night collecting and you can (until which year ?) walk on forest paths (be careful about bothrops - "fer de lance", relatively common along one of these paths - have good boots !) well known by french entomologists for their richness in Parides, and mainly Parides vercingetorix. See the paper : www.lepido-france.fr/2013/11/parides-vercingetorix-du-nouveau/Getting in Moutouchi, don't forget to tell Franck the owner that you got the advice to stay there from the Lepidopterists of France Association (he is a member) and from me ! Looking for Morpho, 9 species inhabit the French Guyane : marcus, eugenia, telemachus (2 forms), hecuba, rhetenor, helenor, achilles, deidamia and menelaus. Nowadays, there are some talkings about the possibility of eugenia uraneis (I got interesting informations on the matter). These Morpho fly in the whole country but I could say that the Montagne de Kaw is probably the best place to meet these 9 species. As I told in these former posts on collecting in Guyane, some very good places to stay (and meet many species) are : - Montagne de Kaw : le Relais de Patawa owned by entomologists : Odette et Jannot Patawa <patawa2@wanadoo.fr> www.escapade-carbet.com/carbet/relais-de-patawa/- Not far from Montagne de Kaw and the Cacao Hmong village (Hmong people came there from Laos at the end of the Vietnam war) : les Carbets de Coralie : de coralie caexgeo <carbetsdecoralie@orange.fr> www.carbetsdecoralie.fr/www.escapade-carbet.com/carbet/carbets-de-coralie/Note that Hmong people are excellent butterflies collectors and sell papered butterflies including Agrias. Of course, they serve excellent cooking (laotian cooking) in small restaurants ! - A place I love so much : les Carbets du Bord à Saül (deep into the rain pristine forest) : Goudot Dominique <lescarbetsdubord@orange.fr> www.escapade-carbet.com/carbet/les-carbets-du-bord/www.lescarbetsdubord-saul.net/Others lodging informations on this page : www.lepido-france.fr/2014/03/voyages-entomologiques-2014-2015/(scroll down to the chapter Guyane) About butterflies in FG : www.lepido-france.fr/2013/02/rhopaloceres-de-guyane-2012/www.lepido-france.fr/2011/01/papillons-de-guyane/www.lepido-france.fr/2014/01/heteroceres-de-guyane/www.lepido-france.fr/2011/12/saturniidae-de-guyane-francaise/www.lepido-france.fr/2011/04/sphingidae-de-guyane-francaise/Hoping it will be useful ! I add a photo showing my wife in the Carbets de Coralie (very remote location but so nice on the entomological point of view). Have a good sojurn in Guyane !
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Post by jmg on Jan 2, 2016 0:18:46 GMT
As Wollastoni said, France is a free country : you can collect in French Guyane ! Except in the National Parks and Reserved areas. Nevertheless, staying in Saül, in the heart of the NP of Guyane, visit the local administrator of the Park and tell him you are entomologist. He will tell you where are the good spots for collecting butterflies ! He is a smart and cleaver guy : he knows perfectly that two or three samples collected from a single species will NOT make the species extinction ! He has much more trouble with illegal gold mining. More than 90 % of the french Guyane territory is forest, mainly primary forest. Few deforestation, few commercial cultures, no oil palm trees plantations, no transgenic soja fields, no GMO. Butterflies are not endangered by the human activity and, as any person well minded can understand, this is not the entomological activity who could change things. As you know, its mainly in countries where they destroy the forest that field free entomology is prohibited. Staying in Saül and getting accomodation in the Carbets du Bord, ask the owner to meet the Park administrator : he is a good friend of her. At dusk, have a ti'punch (ron with lime juice) with him and talk about tracks, paths and butterflies. As one can see on the following photo, butterfly nets are not hired in Saül !
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Post by Adam Cotton on Jan 2, 2016 11:07:16 GMT
As one can see on the following photo, butterfly nets are not hired in Saül ! I guess that what you mean is there is no need to 'hide' butterfly nets in Saül, rather than 'there are none available for rent'. Adam.
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Post by jmg on Jan 2, 2016 12:10:08 GMT
"I guess that what you mean is there is no need to 'hide' butterfly nets in Saül, rather than 'there are none available for rent". Adam. Many thanks, Adam, for pointing this stupid error from my part ! One must understand : "no necessity to hide the butterfly nets, although we are in a national park!". As far I know, it's not possible to hire (rental) butterfly net in Saül. But it's OK for renting night collecting bulbs and power generators inside several lodges. Sorry Here are some photos of french Lepidopterists in Saül (French Guyane) jm
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Post by jmg on Jan 2, 2016 12:11:12 GMT
in Saül ...
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Post by jmg on Jan 2, 2016 12:11:53 GMT
always in Saül :
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Post by jmg on Jan 2, 2016 12:12:37 GMT
Inside the forest, near Saül :
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Post by Adam Cotton on Jan 2, 2016 20:11:10 GMT
I remember hearing somewhere that it is generally hard to find mud-puddling aggregations of Papilionidae in the Surinam and French Guyana area. Is this really the case or just a story? It seems strange if it is true.
Adam.
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Post by jmg on Jan 2, 2016 22:57:19 GMT
"I remember hearing somewhere that it is generally hard to find mud-puddling aggregations of Papilionidae in the Surinam and French Guyana area. Is this really the case or just a story? It seems strange if it is true." Adam. First point: according to my experience in Guyana, the Papilionidae are not very abundant, even rare. During two visits, each time a month, I have not seen more than 2 or 3 P. thoas, 2 or 3 P. torquatus, etc. Except Parides that may be abundant but almost always localized. I have no recollection of mud-puddling Parides: I observed on flowers or foliage placed in or flying from one place to another. Second point: I have no souvenir of having met congregations of Guyanese Papilionidae mud-puddling. Having seen the thing in Peru, Ecuador, Colombia (not to mention Africa or Asia), I have come to this conclusion (all theoretical? And perhaps wrong!) that if we can not observe such gatherings in Guyana it's because the shores of creeks are mostly silty and muddy and probably poor in mineral salts. Unlike Andean rios whose banks are sandy and rich in minerals. May be, other factors have to be counsidered. What about southern Guyana in Mounts "Tumuc Humac", where the rivers flow (I guess) more directly on the granitic bedrock? I sent your question to an entomologist friend living in Guyane to learn his opinion on the matter
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Post by jmg on Jan 2, 2016 23:23:35 GMT
"I remember hearing somewhere that it is generally hard to find mud-puddling aggregations of Papilionidae in the Surinam and French Guyana area. Is this really the case or just a story? It seems strange if it is true." Adam. I'll add that the same situation occurs in the areas where I stayed (mainly the paulist seashore and Serra do Mar, several times) in the brazilian Mata Atlantica. Papilionidae are not so abundant and I never met these butterflies mud-puddling. Parides and other species were always observed flying or visiting flowers.
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Post by Paul K on Jan 3, 2016 3:22:15 GMT
When I was there in Kaw Mountains in beginning of February ( rain season ) I have seen and collected only two Papilio torquatus feeding on some flowers on the meadow. There were no Parides to my disappointment as I have met few in Costa Rica in my previous trip.As mentioned by jmg I also have seen Parides on flowers and and in flight in undergrowth but never mud puddling.
No Nymphalidae in banana traps. I have seen two Morpho sp. and collected many Heliconids.
It was good though for moth collecting.
Paul
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Post by jmg on Jan 3, 2016 10:39:43 GMT
"There were no Parides to my disappointment as I have met few in Costa Rica in my previous trip.As mentioned by jmg I also have seen Parides on flowers and and in flight in undergrowth but never mud puddling. No Nymphalidae in banana traps. I have seen two Morpho sp. and collected many Heliconids." Paul K. As already said, Parides are not uncommon in Guyane and on Montagne de Kaw but very localized : they are even common on a same spot, but often not so easy to discover. They use to stay under trees and bushes and it's only when one of them cross a path that you can presume where they congregate on flowers. Banana traps in French Guyane are not so unefficient as you write. I collected many Memphis, Archaeoprepona, Satyrinae, Brassolini using banana baits. If the trap is hanged high, near the canopy, you can get Agrias. Regarding the Morpho, I have no souvenir having collected only a single sample by trap in FG : only using blue lure. The question of lures for Morpho is rather complex : colour, pattern of the colour, and the way how to use the lure. I'll explain it if you like ! Here is the answer from Frédéric B., my entomologist friend in FG, to the A dam's question :
"What you say about the banks has been repeatedly discussed but may not be sufficient to explain the phenomenon satisfactorily (or lack thereof) ... Other stimuli or triggers should intervene.
In my view, if the population density would increases, these gatherings may exist in Guyana on any scale but where and when? I myself have observed significant, but only Pierides (and just in the area of St. George). Aphrissa statira mainly but Phoebis argante also ... and in some years and always at the very beginning of their explosion in numbers, coinciding with the rains early in the dry season (late June / early July).
This appears to be aggregations of a single species (copies scattered Aphrissa or other Phoebis sometimes associated, I would say "as encouraged") mud-puddling in pre-migration phase. After that, strangely, nothing to such a scale, while drought is increasing, puddles are scarce and the same (?) butterflies are there. Yet it is in the dry season that are observed rare Papilionidae mud-puddling (in my case, never Battus or Parides). Always a single or 2-3 individuals of other genres can be exceptionally observed on ground: Neographium and Protesilaus; Eurytides; Mimoides. Only in this way I had the chance to see and take copies of rare callias or pausanias ... I do not think I have seen in Guyana Heraclides in these conditions.
Note that a male Pterourus menatius was taken by JYG mud-puddling in Ouanary."
Photo : some Papilionidae mud-puddling ... on the Tambopata bank in Madre de Dios, Peru :
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Post by jmg on Jan 3, 2016 11:48:23 GMT
A second answer to the Adam's question from another french entomologist who has an acurate knowledge on guyanese fauna :
"A plusieurs reprises j'ai pu observer quelques Protesilaus sp. (jusqu'à 6) et Heraclides androgeus mâles (jusqu'à 3) se ressembler sur des endroits humides de chemins: (Cacao et PK31 de le route de Kaw pour Protesilaus et Crique Couleuvre pour androgeus. Amitiés"
"On several occasions I have observed some Protesilaus sp. (up to 6) and Heraclides androgeus males (up to 3) congregate on wet locations paths: (Protesilaus : Cacao and PK31 of Kaw road ; Couleuvre Creek for androgeus)."
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Post by Adam Cotton on Jan 3, 2016 15:09:33 GMT
It's a pity that FG/Surinam Papilionidae seem relatively rare, as a number of types came from that area. I recently helped review a DNA manuscript on the protesilaus group, and the paper was eventually rejected for publication partly because they didn't include samples from anywhere other than Colombia and Central America, so their taxonomic conclusions were not based on data including specimens from anywhere near the type localities.
Adam.
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