A visit to the butterfly collections at Taunton in Somerset.
Mar 22, 2015 9:28:30 GMT
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Post by nomad on Mar 22, 2015 9:28:30 GMT
Recently, I visited the Somerset Heritage Centre in the West Country town of Taunton in England to study their small lepidoptera collections. These collections had been recently moved from the old Castle Museum in Taunton to the new building. All the images shown here are from specimens in their collections.
The Somerset Heritage Centre, Taunton.
The collections manager at heritage centre, Dennis Parsons, has been with the Somerset museum for many years . Some of the specimens in the collections are in a much better state of preservation that others. Certain valuable specimens, a series of Cornish Maculinea arion and others had been damaged beyond repair when the drawer was dropped by the removal men when the cabinets were transferred from the museum to their new home. At least there was no pests as experienced by our member dunc on his visit to the Hyde collection at the Doncaster museum. The curator is not a naturalist but an archaeologist and the collections had been in his care for over least twenty years. There were no demestid insect deterrents within the drawers, but they have been occasionally subject to freezing. With new health and safety laws, museums now will not usually use Naphthalene within their cabinets and as many museums neither have the time or inclination to freeze drawers, the result will be the loss of specimens due to pests. Unfortunately, the present curator is going to relinquish the management of the collections, so ther future of these remains uncertain.
A pair of Macuilnea arion eutyphron. Bude 1906. ex Hancock coll.
I had asked to see the specimens of Lycaenidae and the curator had kindly put an array of different cabinet drawers in a study room where he spent the entire time putting a beautifully decorated blue Chinaware bowl that was in many pieces expertly back together. There was a wide range of different sized cabinet drawers because all of the bequests of lepidoptera were still in their original cabinets. One cabinet must have been huge, because the old drawers were super-sized.
Aricia artaxerxes artaxerxes. Glen Cairn, Dumfries and Galloway. Scotland. ex A.H. Turner coll.
The curator explained " The interest in the collections, is mainly archaeological. Especially because of the great success of the U.K programme ' Time Team ' ". " There is a very limited interest in these small local natural history collections. " This may be the possible reason why there is a reluctance of some of the smaller museums to give much time to their insect collections maintenance . The curator also mentioned that " I was only the third person to ask to access these local lepidoptera collections " I was told that the last person who visited the collections was the local lepidopterist Roger Sutton from Taunton, who was studying the remains of the Somerset Lycaena dispar dispar and L. virgaureae specimens. The story of the Somerset Lycaena dispar and Lycaena virgaureae is most interesting one and their story will follow shortly.
Polyommatus icarus Blue female. Normal size and a minature specimen. ex H. Doidge coll Swanage, Dorset.
When I requested to visit the heritage centre, I was told that there were probably no Maculinea arion from the old localities in Somerset. However during my study of these collections I did manage to locate a few from Langport but sadly none from the Polden Hills . There was also a couple of possible specimens of Plebejus argus with blue females from the Langport Hills that I was very keen to find. There a few specimens of this extinct unnamed race in the J.C. Dale collection at Oxford.
Hamearis Lucina. Ex A. H. Turner coll. The bottom specimen is from Thurlbear in South Somerset where this species had become extinct but was later reintroduced. Turner reported this species to be local in Somerset but was found in many woods. Today, there are few sites remaining within the county.
During my visit, I was allowed to remove the specimens from their cabinet drawers, study any data and photograph them. The earliest extensive surviving Lepidoptera collection was originally donated to Taunton Museum in 1876 by W.G. Rawlinson ( 1840 -1928) from Taunton . It appears that a few bequests of specimens that were captured by other early Somerset collectors have been placed within his collection. Rawlinson, a wealthy Silk manufacturer and a collector of fine art, placed no data on his specimens.
Lysandra coridon female. ab Synagrapha. Ex A.H. Turner coll. Chiltern Hills, Buckinghamshire. Very scarce today.
Lysandra coridon male ab fowleri Ex A.H. Turner coll. Salisbury, Wiltshire. This aberration was once reasonably frequent in the Salisbury area of Wiltshire and on the Chiltern Hills. This fine aberration is rarely encountered today.
At the heritage centre there was also the British collections that had data presented by the A.H. Turner (1916-2005?) from Taunton. Turner wrote the paperback book ' Lepidoptera of Somerset ' published in 1955, which is a checklist of species with their localities and the collectors names. Many of Turner's specimens were not captured locally and like many other British collectors he visited a wide range of localities in many areas of Britain.
Plebejus argus male.Ex A.H Turner coll. Culmstock, Blackdown Hills, East Devon. June 1953. By 1984 this butterfly was extinct in the Blackdown Hills.
The Somerset Heritage Centre, Taunton.
The collections manager at heritage centre, Dennis Parsons, has been with the Somerset museum for many years . Some of the specimens in the collections are in a much better state of preservation that others. Certain valuable specimens, a series of Cornish Maculinea arion and others had been damaged beyond repair when the drawer was dropped by the removal men when the cabinets were transferred from the museum to their new home. At least there was no pests as experienced by our member dunc on his visit to the Hyde collection at the Doncaster museum. The curator is not a naturalist but an archaeologist and the collections had been in his care for over least twenty years. There were no demestid insect deterrents within the drawers, but they have been occasionally subject to freezing. With new health and safety laws, museums now will not usually use Naphthalene within their cabinets and as many museums neither have the time or inclination to freeze drawers, the result will be the loss of specimens due to pests. Unfortunately, the present curator is going to relinquish the management of the collections, so ther future of these remains uncertain.
A pair of Macuilnea arion eutyphron. Bude 1906. ex Hancock coll.
I had asked to see the specimens of Lycaenidae and the curator had kindly put an array of different cabinet drawers in a study room where he spent the entire time putting a beautifully decorated blue Chinaware bowl that was in many pieces expertly back together. There was a wide range of different sized cabinet drawers because all of the bequests of lepidoptera were still in their original cabinets. One cabinet must have been huge, because the old drawers were super-sized.
Aricia artaxerxes artaxerxes. Glen Cairn, Dumfries and Galloway. Scotland. ex A.H. Turner coll.
The curator explained " The interest in the collections, is mainly archaeological. Especially because of the great success of the U.K programme ' Time Team ' ". " There is a very limited interest in these small local natural history collections. " This may be the possible reason why there is a reluctance of some of the smaller museums to give much time to their insect collections maintenance . The curator also mentioned that " I was only the third person to ask to access these local lepidoptera collections " I was told that the last person who visited the collections was the local lepidopterist Roger Sutton from Taunton, who was studying the remains of the Somerset Lycaena dispar dispar and L. virgaureae specimens. The story of the Somerset Lycaena dispar and Lycaena virgaureae is most interesting one and their story will follow shortly.
Polyommatus icarus Blue female. Normal size and a minature specimen. ex H. Doidge coll Swanage, Dorset.
When I requested to visit the heritage centre, I was told that there were probably no Maculinea arion from the old localities in Somerset. However during my study of these collections I did manage to locate a few from Langport but sadly none from the Polden Hills . There was also a couple of possible specimens of Plebejus argus with blue females from the Langport Hills that I was very keen to find. There a few specimens of this extinct unnamed race in the J.C. Dale collection at Oxford.
Hamearis Lucina. Ex A. H. Turner coll. The bottom specimen is from Thurlbear in South Somerset where this species had become extinct but was later reintroduced. Turner reported this species to be local in Somerset but was found in many woods. Today, there are few sites remaining within the county.
During my visit, I was allowed to remove the specimens from their cabinet drawers, study any data and photograph them. The earliest extensive surviving Lepidoptera collection was originally donated to Taunton Museum in 1876 by W.G. Rawlinson ( 1840 -1928) from Taunton . It appears that a few bequests of specimens that were captured by other early Somerset collectors have been placed within his collection. Rawlinson, a wealthy Silk manufacturer and a collector of fine art, placed no data on his specimens.
Lysandra coridon female. ab Synagrapha. Ex A.H. Turner coll. Chiltern Hills, Buckinghamshire. Very scarce today.
Lysandra coridon male ab fowleri Ex A.H. Turner coll. Salisbury, Wiltshire. This aberration was once reasonably frequent in the Salisbury area of Wiltshire and on the Chiltern Hills. This fine aberration is rarely encountered today.
At the heritage centre there was also the British collections that had data presented by the A.H. Turner (1916-2005?) from Taunton. Turner wrote the paperback book ' Lepidoptera of Somerset ' published in 1955, which is a checklist of species with their localities and the collectors names. Many of Turner's specimens were not captured locally and like many other British collectors he visited a wide range of localities in many areas of Britain.
Plebejus argus male.Ex A.H Turner coll. Culmstock, Blackdown Hills, East Devon. June 1953. By 1984 this butterfly was extinct in the Blackdown Hills.