To all readers of this article. * I have purchased the use (Copyright) of these images from the British Museum of Natural History. They remain the copyright of the BMNH.
The Lepidoptera collected by the New Guinea Wollaston Expedition.
Lord Walter Rothschild produced an excellent account of the lepidoptera collected by Wollaston and Kloss.
The Lepidoptera of the British Ornithologists' Union and Wollaston Expeditions in the Snow Mountains, Southern Dutch New Guinea was published in 1915. The two very fine plates from this publication are show here for easy reference. This section is accompanied by some high-definition British Museum images that were especially requested some time ago, when I first became interested in the Wollaston New Guinea Expedition. A few of these images have been shown in another thread but add much to the scientific interest of this article. The Delias specimens were collected by A.F.R Wollaston in February on Carstensz. None were taken in March, as the labels might suggest, Wollaston was back in his lower Canoe Camp by the first days of that month. Kloss was very busy during February on Carstensz, making a large collection of botanical specimens. Two of the dryaks were hired as collectors, but only to shoot and obtain bird specimens.
At his different camps and especially those that he made high up on Carstensz, Sandy Wollaston and his party collected 811 species of lepidoptera including 210 species of butterflies of which 40 species and 16 subspecies were new and of the moths, 212 species and around 20 subspecies were also new to science. There were no new Papilionidae and the Ornithoptera were rarely seen. Sandy caught a single female of
O. tithonus at his base camp at sea level on the Utakwa River (Oetakwa River). This was the first specimen of this species to be taken in this area. Rothschild mentioned that the female
O. tithonus sent to him by Wollaston, was different from those he had examined from Kapaur in the Onin Peninsula. Today, the
O. tithonus Oetakwa River population is regarded by some authors as subspecies
makikoae but others regard it as belonging to the nominate race.
Ornithoptera tithonus female taken by Wollaston.
Wollaston also took a number of the then rare and beautiful montane
Graphuim weiskei. Only the males of
G. weiskei were captured, the females as usual remained elusive. In his account of the lepidoptera of the Wollaston Expedition, Walter Rothschild took the opportunity to describe two new subspecies of
Graphuim weiskei: goodenovii from a single male collected on Goodenough Island by A.S Meek in 1913 and
stresemanni from the Mansuela range in Ceram where it was first found by the German naturalist Erwin Stresemann [1889- 1972]. Stresemann's Graphuim is now regarded as a separate species and Meek's discovery
goodenovii, may also be another closely related distinct species.
Among the new butterflies discovered by the Wollaston party were four new Satyrinae and a female of the exquisite
Taenaris [Morphotenaris] schoenberi wollastoni, which is now considered to be synonymous with the nominate race. There were 12 new Lycaenidae and 19 new skippers of which there was some amazing new forms. The fine collection of moths included some very beautiful species that included a giant Ghost moth
Aenetus [Oenetus] wollastoni and
Craspedosis wollastoni from the Geometridae family. A link to a specimen image of the very rare
Aenetus wollastoni here
www.papua-insects.nl/insect%20orders/Lepidoptera/Hepialidae/Aenetus/Aenetus%20wollastoni.htm Among the outstanding lepidoptera captured on the Wollaston expedition and what pleased Walter Rothschild the most, were the butterflies of the Pieridae genus Delias. Walter Rothschild wrote of the new Delias species collected during the Wollaston Expedition
" considering the number of new Delias obtained by Mr A.S. Meek on the Utakwa River and on Mount Goliath it was an immense surprise to find 6 new forms, 3 of which are quite unlike anything known hitherto ".
Albert Meek had found the butterfly collecting on the Upper Setakwa River poor, but a year later in 1911 he joined the Dutch Eilanden River Expedition. Meek reached the upper Eilanden River and set up his collecting camp at 6500 feet on Mount Goliath in the Star Mountains but soon found his stay in the mountain's moss forests, dank and miserable. When it was not raining, Meek and his collectors were usually enveloped in a cold mist, which made the trees always dripping wet. A. S. Meek spent three months on Mount Goliath from January to March but the butterflies were again scarce except for the Delias butterflies which were glorious. Meek and his native collectors endured many hardships on Mount Goliath but the Delias butterflies helped to brighten Meek's stay there. He wrote enthusiastically
" They are white butterflies as regards the top side of the wings but on the underside the wings show the most beautiful colours : in some instances black and grey in others black and red- all very peculiar and very beautiful. The males and the females of this genus are in some instances very much alike, except that the females are darker in colouring than the males". On Mount Goliath, Meek discovered seven new Delias and obtained a good series of each species, including the elusive females. Meek had much experience in hunting Delias, especially in the Owen Stanley Range of the then British New Guinea.
The Wollaston party collected 18 species of Delias on their expedition of which four were new. Rothschild called the new
Delias Wollastoni a marvellous insect unlike any known Delias, a rare compliment from the taxonomist who had described so many beautiful butterflies and he named this special discovery in Sandy's honour. Another new and beautiful unanticipated species he named
Delias inexpectata. Both of these new Delias and the very striking
Delias klossi were described by Rothschild from single male specimens that were captured high on the slopes of Carstensz in February 1913. The female of the nominate
D. klossi, remains to be discovered a 100 years after the Wollaston expedition! The fourth new discovery
Delias carstenziana was more numerous but again only the males were taken.
.
Delias Wollastoni. Holoytype Male.
Delias klossi. Holotype Male.
Delias inexpectata Holoytype Male.
All the specimens on the plates above, were taken during the 1912/1913 Wollaston Expedition except those added by Rothschild on plate one: figures, 9, 24, specimens obtained by Meek, Figure 15, collected by Stresemann. Only a few of the Heterocera specimens of the B.O.U. Expedition that were caught by Wollaston appeared in an Appendix in Rothschild's publication, the others stored in the British Museum were then awaiting study.
