Ted Archer and his Birdwing Butterfly.
Mar 5, 2016 8:52:59 GMT
deliasfanatic, mygos, and 4 more like this
Post by nomad on Mar 5, 2016 8:52:59 GMT
As requested by Olivier, a brief article concerning the Entomologist Ted Archer.
The British entomologist Edward "Ted" Archer (1909-1992) from Barnet in London is best known for his interest in Birdwing Butterflies. I have found no article or obituary regarding this collector, just snippets of information. Ted Archer was elected to the British Entomological and Natural History Society in 1960. The BENHS was the last great bastion of British insect collectors and perhaps some older members here may have met Ted who regularly attended the Annual Exhibition which was held at various locations in London.
When Ted Archer retired at the age of 65, he decided to follow his passion to the remote mountains of New Guinea and to the Solomon Islands. I have seen that it has been mentioned here that Ted Archer collected extensively throughout the Solomons during the 1970s, when in fact his journey were made to the Archipelago during a single year 1974. That is the date that will be found on Ted Archer's specimen labels. Archer's specimens seem to be widely dispersed among different collections. If Ted Archer did visit that area again, which seems unlikely, I can find no mention of it.
The following journey Ted made is quite remarkable considering his age, and shows that it is never too late to take the plunge. In early 1974 Ted Archer arrived in Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea. He then set off on an arduous trek across the Owen Stanley Range to Popondetta, almost certainly using the tough Kokodo Trail. Arriving in the Popondetta area he would see and take photographs of Ornithoptera alexandae.
A visit to Lae followed and he then set out for Wau where he visited Mount Kaindi. Among the butterflies he collected on Mount Kaindi, he found that it was a rich locality for Delias species. Leaving New Guinea he visited north-western Papua including the Torricelli Range. Ted Archer also visited the Admiralty Islands, New Ireland, New Britain, before travelling on to Bougainville before ending his travels in the Solomons Islands at Honiara, Guadalcanal.
It was during his travels in north and west Choiseul that Ted Archer collected the butterfly that he is most famous for. During a month spent on the Island at several locations he found that the O. victoriae on Choiseul were quite different to the O. victoriae regis he had seen on Boungainville. Ted was able to obtain a small series of both sexes of the victoriae from Choiseul.
A decade later Peter Calderara described Archer's victoriae specimens as a new subspecies in the Proceedings and Transaction of the BENHS (1984); Ornithoptera victoriae archeri in the collector's honour. It has also been stated that Ted Archer discovered victoriae on Choiseul, this may not be so but he was certainly the first to collect fresh material. In fact during 1925, the American entomologist G.A. Ehrmann from Pittsburgh described specimens purported to come from Choiseul as O. victoriae resplendens. Ehrmann had obtained the Choiseul victoriae specimens from the Harvard Entomologist, Professor William Reiff who had a network of Worldwide collectors indeed his wife seems to have had many fingers in the Professor's pie. See this
link
During 1970, F. Schmid examined a series of O. victoriae that were labelled Choiseul in the American Museum of Natural History and also the Reiff type specimens and had no doubt that the Choiseul ssp resplendens was synonymous with Ornithoptera victoriae regis and therefore an invalid taxon.
Peter Calderara mentioned that Archer's victoriae specimens did not correspond to the Choiseul ' resplendens' material in the AMNH, and he suggested the provenance of those specimens was erroneous so described the Choiseul victoriae as a new subspecies archeri. O. victoriae is known to be a variable species within most of its populations. If in fact the American material did come from Choiseul then O. victoriae archeri, Calderara (1984) would be a synonym of O. victoriae resplendens, Ehrmann (1925). Bernard d' Abrera wrote " Unfortunately for Calderera (typo) the female type of resplendens in the Carnegie Museum is now generally accepted as being collected by Meek". Which seems rather strange because Meek send his material to Walter Rothschild and made no mention of collecting O. victoriae while he was visiting Choiseul.
D' Abrera (2003) regarded O. victoriae archeri as a synonym of O. victoriae regis. Matsuka (2001) retained archeri as a subspecies while Deslisle and Sclavo (2015) have gone further and regard all the subspecies of victoriae except rubianus as geographical forms of the nominate species.
At the BENH Annual Exhibition for 1976, the star attraction was Ted Archer's table of the butterflies that he had collected in his six month (year?) long sojourn in Papua and the Solomon islands. Besides many rare species it is said he exhibited 40 new species of Rhopalocera new to science that were yet to be described. I would be interested to know what other new species of butterfly Ted Archer found, unless they proved with time to be already described taxons. The real stars of that years show was Ted's Birdwings that he had collected, presented were 22 examples of ten subspecies of two species that included his Choiseul victoriae.
At a BENHS meeting during 1977, Ted Archer thrilled the meeting by giving a talk on his Papuan and Solomon adventures accompanied by a range of his slides that included both O. victoriae and O. alexandrae.
O. victoriae archeri types ; plate from " A new subspecies of O. victoriae Gray (Papilionidae) from Choiseul, Solomon Islands by Peter Calderara published in the Proceedings and Transaction of the BENHS (1984).
A specimen of O. victoriae archeri, E.N. Archer leg on the Nagypal website shows more golden sub-apitcal patches than the types shown by Calderara above. Photographed in different light conditions? See this link.
www.nagypal.net/images/zzvictor.htm#archeri
A glimpse of Ted Archer at the BENHS Annual Exhibition 1984. Top left behind.
Please feel free to correct or add further notes to this brief article. It would be nice to here from those who actually were fortunate to meet him.
The British entomologist Edward "Ted" Archer (1909-1992) from Barnet in London is best known for his interest in Birdwing Butterflies. I have found no article or obituary regarding this collector, just snippets of information. Ted Archer was elected to the British Entomological and Natural History Society in 1960. The BENHS was the last great bastion of British insect collectors and perhaps some older members here may have met Ted who regularly attended the Annual Exhibition which was held at various locations in London.
When Ted Archer retired at the age of 65, he decided to follow his passion to the remote mountains of New Guinea and to the Solomon Islands. I have seen that it has been mentioned here that Ted Archer collected extensively throughout the Solomons during the 1970s, when in fact his journey were made to the Archipelago during a single year 1974. That is the date that will be found on Ted Archer's specimen labels. Archer's specimens seem to be widely dispersed among different collections. If Ted Archer did visit that area again, which seems unlikely, I can find no mention of it.
The following journey Ted made is quite remarkable considering his age, and shows that it is never too late to take the plunge. In early 1974 Ted Archer arrived in Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea. He then set off on an arduous trek across the Owen Stanley Range to Popondetta, almost certainly using the tough Kokodo Trail. Arriving in the Popondetta area he would see and take photographs of Ornithoptera alexandae.
A visit to Lae followed and he then set out for Wau where he visited Mount Kaindi. Among the butterflies he collected on Mount Kaindi, he found that it was a rich locality for Delias species. Leaving New Guinea he visited north-western Papua including the Torricelli Range. Ted Archer also visited the Admiralty Islands, New Ireland, New Britain, before travelling on to Bougainville before ending his travels in the Solomons Islands at Honiara, Guadalcanal.
It was during his travels in north and west Choiseul that Ted Archer collected the butterfly that he is most famous for. During a month spent on the Island at several locations he found that the O. victoriae on Choiseul were quite different to the O. victoriae regis he had seen on Boungainville. Ted was able to obtain a small series of both sexes of the victoriae from Choiseul.
A decade later Peter Calderara described Archer's victoriae specimens as a new subspecies in the Proceedings and Transaction of the BENHS (1984); Ornithoptera victoriae archeri in the collector's honour. It has also been stated that Ted Archer discovered victoriae on Choiseul, this may not be so but he was certainly the first to collect fresh material. In fact during 1925, the American entomologist G.A. Ehrmann from Pittsburgh described specimens purported to come from Choiseul as O. victoriae resplendens. Ehrmann had obtained the Choiseul victoriae specimens from the Harvard Entomologist, Professor William Reiff who had a network of Worldwide collectors indeed his wife seems to have had many fingers in the Professor's pie. See this
link
During 1970, F. Schmid examined a series of O. victoriae that were labelled Choiseul in the American Museum of Natural History and also the Reiff type specimens and had no doubt that the Choiseul ssp resplendens was synonymous with Ornithoptera victoriae regis and therefore an invalid taxon.
Peter Calderara mentioned that Archer's victoriae specimens did not correspond to the Choiseul ' resplendens' material in the AMNH, and he suggested the provenance of those specimens was erroneous so described the Choiseul victoriae as a new subspecies archeri. O. victoriae is known to be a variable species within most of its populations. If in fact the American material did come from Choiseul then O. victoriae archeri, Calderara (1984) would be a synonym of O. victoriae resplendens, Ehrmann (1925). Bernard d' Abrera wrote " Unfortunately for Calderera (typo) the female type of resplendens in the Carnegie Museum is now generally accepted as being collected by Meek". Which seems rather strange because Meek send his material to Walter Rothschild and made no mention of collecting O. victoriae while he was visiting Choiseul.
D' Abrera (2003) regarded O. victoriae archeri as a synonym of O. victoriae regis. Matsuka (2001) retained archeri as a subspecies while Deslisle and Sclavo (2015) have gone further and regard all the subspecies of victoriae except rubianus as geographical forms of the nominate species.
At the BENH Annual Exhibition for 1976, the star attraction was Ted Archer's table of the butterflies that he had collected in his six month (year?) long sojourn in Papua and the Solomon islands. Besides many rare species it is said he exhibited 40 new species of Rhopalocera new to science that were yet to be described. I would be interested to know what other new species of butterfly Ted Archer found, unless they proved with time to be already described taxons. The real stars of that years show was Ted's Birdwings that he had collected, presented were 22 examples of ten subspecies of two species that included his Choiseul victoriae.
At a BENHS meeting during 1977, Ted Archer thrilled the meeting by giving a talk on his Papuan and Solomon adventures accompanied by a range of his slides that included both O. victoriae and O. alexandrae.
O. victoriae archeri types ; plate from " A new subspecies of O. victoriae Gray (Papilionidae) from Choiseul, Solomon Islands by Peter Calderara published in the Proceedings and Transaction of the BENHS (1984).
A specimen of O. victoriae archeri, E.N. Archer leg on the Nagypal website shows more golden sub-apitcal patches than the types shown by Calderara above. Photographed in different light conditions? See this link.
www.nagypal.net/images/zzvictor.htm#archeri
A glimpse of Ted Archer at the BENHS Annual Exhibition 1984. Top left behind.
Please feel free to correct or add further notes to this brief article. It would be nice to here from those who actually were fortunate to meet him.