|
Post by nomihoudai on Dec 9, 2015 8:10:02 GMT
Thanks for the information Paul. I will visit a friend, when I understood him correctly he will be on the Atlantic slope.
|
|
|
Post by nomihoudai on Dec 8, 2015 23:31:32 GMT
Hi Peter.
Thanks. Even if the weather or season will not be that great for them (actually I don't know), I will have a blast taking pictures of birds and other things. But hopefully, I will also be lucky on the Lycaenidae part.
I have to admit that I didn't have the time to read the book yet. I don't think the Caribbean specimen are that rare in private collections unless I am missing something? I do for example have a few from there as many people pass there for their holidays. Yes most of them stay in the lowland areas and the species the encounter are not that exceptional, but there is also collectors going to different places.
Yes, I am after doing proper science, but to afford all of this I sometimes have to deal with butterflies. Lycaenidae are not that expensive, compared to other groups. The most expensive I can actually think of, and have heard of are Lycaena dispar dispar specimens. I never heard about any Lycaenid being above 500€. There is a few in the range of 100€-300€. The funny part about the paratypes is that some of them can be had from 5€ to 20€ (yes, I do have one that I gave 5€ for...). With these you have to consider that you are actually paying 25€ for something where the real value of a specimen is closer to 3€, so still a big inflation.
If you want to collect everything for your own collection the worst part will not be the price, but the fact that many species will never ever be offered to you or it is impossible finding someone that sells them. I had recently a discussion with somebody that wanted to finish all of Lycaenini. But how do you think you can get things like Lycaena eberti from Afghanistan? Lycaena tseng I have also never seen for sale (not like the other 3 species of that group). How would you get a Iophanus pyrrhias, the Guatemalan Copper? As far as I know their habitat is protected and I have not seen that many butterflies from Guatemala so far. And I won't even start about the 2 Melanolycaena species from Papua. I have photographed some of these species in museums, owning them in my collection, most likely impossible. Currently also a fair amount of Lycaenidae live in inaccessible areas due to the worsening political and humanitarian situation in the Middle East. In Frankfurt I saw a pair of Micropsyche from Afghanistan for 200€, when I came back it was sold. If the country was stable you could probably get them in decent quantities as Lycaenidae like to swarm and proliferate. That's a lot of money for something as tiny as the fingernail of my pinky.
|
|
|
Post by nomihoudai on Dec 8, 2015 10:11:58 GMT
Hi Thierry How many years ago is this now? I think it could be close to 5. Yes, things have changed a lot. Yes, for me the most interesting is that they cover basically any habitat on a global scale. You study these, and you studied everything. They will be handy for future research plans. They also span the whole spectrum of colors in nearly any combination, and don't take that much space, you can put 200 into a single drawer. Perfect for the student with little space. Also there is so many of them, if somebody is focusing his research one one group of them you just switch to another For example I will not touch anything Libert is going after, no need to try and do something, that he can do better anyways. Yes I do intend to do more serious work on them. As written before, I have the copyright for that 500 pages list, and I have finally been able to digitize it. Now I have to write the server and then the 'Lycaenidae of the World' project can go online. It should become a free online resource for researchers AND amateurs. The amount of work necessary for it is incredible, but the goal comes within reach.
|
|
|
Post by nomihoudai on Dec 8, 2015 10:01:27 GMT
Hi Peter,
Thanks. Yes, I have received the official copyright for the Bridges Catalogue Vol. 7. I have spend the last 2 years digitizing this, and the list, up to 1994 when the book was published is finally ready. The deal for the copyright was that I put it online and continue the list. I planned to get this ready by mid 2015, but unfortunately things got delayed. I hope to be able to write the server in the next 3 months. As there is 20000 names in Lycaenidae, and I plan on showing at least 4 pics of each there will be a tremendous computational effort behind this server. Therefore I have to program everything myself. I hope to be able to get a first version running in the next few months.
I have a few, I must say that Chrysoritis (=Poecilmitis) from South Africa is something that many times comes first to my mind when asked about a favorite genus. You have the red, orange of the Lycaeninae subfamily, but also the blue of the Polyommatinae, amazing genus. I don't have any in my collection yet, but I hope to be able to visit South Africa in the next 5 years. Or maybe someone is able to trade these with me.
My next flight is booked for Costa Rica, in mid January. First time for me with South American fauna. I hope to be able to take some good pics.
The more I read on them, the more confused I get. So far every paper going for Phengaris is DNA only when I understood it correctly, and none takes into account times, reasons for a divergence, or the actual origin of these species. For me it is very odd to have an East Asian tropical forest species in the same genus than European, Russian low shrub flyers. (Sorry for my weird wording, I am not a biologist by training). It feels like calling a Bhutanitis as Zerynthia to me. Currently I still stick with Maculinea and Phengaris, but I may also be wrong on that.
|
|
|
Post by nomihoudai on Dec 8, 2015 9:43:03 GMT
Of course one should just do as time permits, but the pictures had been handy to cross check the few specimen I have from DRC. Not as a physical specimen, this is impossible as some are just known form very few samples, but I do try to collect every single one as a picture. Along with keeping my own collection I have spend quiet some time the last 3 years travelling to Museums and taking pictures of their collection. This is where the www.label-butterflies.com started, a way for me to mine the data of these undigitized collections. Along with the labels I take high resolution pictures of dorsal, ventral, males, females. I have a few hundred species readily photographed now.
|
|
|
Post by nomihoudai on Dec 8, 2015 9:11:51 GMT
Wow, a lot of questions, I am glad people enjoyed my curating. I will go through each of the question now: Thanks a lot, it is a lot of work indeed. But now that I have only the Lycaenidae it is much less work and I can manage to do it. Yes the Theclinae take up another 8 drawers, so actually they have the most space in my collection. (Amblypodiini; large Arhopala; small Arhopala; Chrysozephyrus; Theclini; Rapala, Deudorix, etc.; SA Eumaeini; Callophrys + Satyrium). The next drawer should then be something out of this subfamily, which I will curate soon. I still try to keep up with the collecting, but due to time constraints the amount of self collected specimen is very small in my collection. I am currently a PhD student, and "only" have 20 days of holidays per year. Take away 10 for family, friends, and other necessities and you are left with 2 weeks per year. I do not collect in Europe any more as I have everything that is within my car's reach. When I collect I colelct everything and try to trade the specimen with other people for Lycaenidae. Only problem there is that most people want Papilio, I am bad at catching Papilio, and Papilio collectors many times don't bother catching Lycaenidae Anyway, I would say 1/4 of my specimen come from direct trades, and the other 3/4 I buy. In the beginning when I was collecting I wanted to go the way of "only self caught or traded stuff", but when you want to hold every species of them in your hands once you must buy. Yes, I always buy a few things at the insect fair. Mostly the more expensive specimen as I can check to get a decent quality one. I then photograph it for my website and after that I very often sell them off again. Many times even a little bit cheaper than what I bought them for to get my funds back quickly. So always look out for me, you might do a real deal. I hope to be able to show my this year's Frankfurt catch before the end of the year.
|
|
|
Post by nomihoudai on Dec 8, 2015 0:44:25 GMT
If anybody has any interest, or request, feel free to ask
|
|
|
Post by nomihoudai on Dec 8, 2015 0:43:19 GMT
And here is the full list of drawer #10:
Acytolepis puspa (Horsfield, 1828) Anthene crawshayi (Butler, 1899) Anthene lunulata (Trimen, 1894) Anthene seltuttus seltuttus (Röber, 1886) Azanus isis (Drury, 1773) Azanus mirza (Plütz, 1880) Azanus natalensis (Trimen & Bowker, 1887) Brephidium exilis (Boisduval, 1852) Brephidium pseudofea pseudofea (Morrison, 1873) Cacyreus marshalli Butler, 1898 Caleta roxus (Godart 1823) Castalius rosimon (Fabricius, 1775) Cupido argiades (Pallas, 1771) Cupido comyntas (Godart, 1824) Cupido lacturnus (Godart, [1824]) Cupido minimus (Fuesslin, 1775) Cyclargus shuturn K. Johnson & Bálint, 1995 Discolampa ethion (Westwood, 1851) Claude Sinner Euchrysops malathana (Boisduval, 1833) Euchrysops osiris (Hopffer, 1855) Hemiargus ceraunus antibubastus Hübner, [1818] Hemiargus ceraunus gyas (Edwards, 1871) Hypolycaena philippus (Fabricius, 1793) Ionolyce helicon javanica Toxopeus, 1929 Lampides boeticus (Linnaeus, 1767) Leptotes marina (Reakirt, 1868) Leptotes pirithous (Linnaeus, 1767) Leptotes plinius (Fabricius, 1793) Luthrodes buruana (Holland, 1900) Lycaenopsis haraldus annamitica Eliot & Kawazoe, 1983 Neophitecops umbretta Grose-Smith, 1895 Oboronia punctatus (Dewitz, 1879) Oreolyce quadriplaga (Snellen 1892) Phlyaria cyara stactalla Karsch, 1895 Pithecops dionisius (Boisduval, 1832) Prosotas dubiosa subardates (Piepers & Snellen, 1918) Prosotas nora superdates (Fruhstorfer, 1916) Pseudozizeeria maha (Kollar 1848) Tarucus rosacea (Austaut, 1885) Tarucus ungemachi Stempffer, 1942 Triclema hades (Bethune-Baker, 1910) Tuxentius carana carana (Hewitson, 1876) Udara akasa akasa (Horsfield 1828) Udara rona catius (Fruhstorfer 1910) Upolampes evena (Hewitson, 1876) Uranothauma falkensteini (Dewitz, 1879) Uranothauma heritsia (Hewitson, 1876) Zizeeria knysna (Trimen 1862) Zizina labradus (Godart, [1824]) Zizula hylax (Fabricius, 1775)
|
|
|
Post by nomihoudai on Dec 8, 2015 0:43:05 GMT
One of the biggest subfamilies in Lycaenidae are the real blues, Polyommatinae. Obviously it is impossible to cram these into one drawer, currently Polyommatinae takes up 7 drawers of my cabinet, only Theclinae needs also as much space (also due to their larger size). They are organised as follows: Lysandra, Agrodiaetus, Plebejus etc., Polyommatus etc., Glaucopsyche etc., Jamides etc., and a junk drawer for any tropical Polyommatinae. This junk drawer obviously has a big burden upon its shoulders as this subfamily is very diverse in Africa and Asia, and nearly absent from South America. Here is the beginning of the process, a huge mess, around 190 specimen: I then spend 18 hours retyping my data labels into a proper file format, and identifying every single specimen in the drawer! I ended up with 51 different species and subspecies. I want to tell about a few of the highlights: * Leptotes pirithous and Lampides boeticus from nearly all of their range. L. p.: DRC, La Réunion, Greece, Italy, Spain. L. b.: DRC, La Réunion, Italy, Greece, India, and Indonesia. * There was a block of Prosotas, I had caught all of them in Java. I can still remember how this swarm of little butterflies was swarming around pieces of bark, like little flies. I was swinging my net through the swarm and packed the contents. Now, after 5 years I determined them, and I actually found 3 different species! Prosotas dubiosa subardates (Piepers & Snellen, 1918), Prosotas nora superdates (Fruhstorfer, 1916), Ionolyce helicon javanica Toxopeus, 1929. * When determining things I used online resources, and came across pics taken by our user cabintom, thanks for all the work! The pics were a help! * I seem to have the sister species of the Miami blue (Cyclargus thomasi) from Jamaica, Cyclargus shuturn K. Johnson & Bálint, 1995 * When looking at this drawer you will have seen 1% of all Lycaenidae worldwide.Unfortunately there was no space left for Anthene, I will move these to some other drawer.
|
|
|
Post by nomihoudai on Dec 8, 2015 0:42:04 GMT
I have compiled some pics that I posted on Insectnet. As a different audience and group of people may lead to different types of discussions I want to share, and copy the thread here (instead of hyper linking). Please enjoy: Hi, when I first discovered Insectnet, the most interesting thing to me was looking at collections of other people, as I didn't have any real collection back then. I must have watched the video by Clark and Bill probably 10 times in a row when I discovered it when they were curating Pierids. Now I have a collection on my own and can share with other users, I hope some will enjoy. Since 3 years (yes, not that long), I am completely focusing on Lycaenidae. I collect them worldwide and there is about 5200 species. I used to have a big moth collection, and various butterflies, even Microlepidoptera, but keeping this collection became incompatible with my current life and I had to step down. I sold everything (several thousand specimen) for good earlier this year, EXCEPT for the Lycaenidae. This week, I finally received a cabinet by Paradox Company from Krakow, Poland. Since a few years I had dreamed of a proper cabinet, but I had to stick with as many used drawers as possible when having the moths, in the end I had around 120 of them, now I am back to 20. Each drawer contains one or several subfamilies of Lycaenidae, The upper 10 mostly tropical things and the bottom 10 Holarctic species. Yes I will not be able to house every species in this, but for the next 2 years I hope it will be enough. Currently I am curating the contents of my collection (after some unavoidable neglecting the last 2 years), if people enjoy the thread I might give some updates here on the process.
|
|
|
Post by nomihoudai on Dec 5, 2015 10:20:05 GMT
My comment yesterday was a general comment, few days before I had read of an "endemic" subspecies of Agriades pyrenaicus in Russia, lol. It's a very widespread species.
Anyway, now I looked at my books and the situation looks very complicated and I am not really happy about the taxonomic situation on these guys atm. So oxleyi is only found in South Island and is having a hard time now since otis/labradus is introduced? Sorry for the confusion here, but some people say Zizina labradus otis, and others apparently Zizina otis labradus... If this competition by the other taxon is happening, it would be crucial to know if they only compete for resources or also do interbreed in a viable, or non viable manner. In the former case it would be good to call them Zizina otis oxleyi, in the latter case Zizina oxleyi. Even without the latter, it might be good to call them Zizina oxleyi (which many people do at the moment) based on other clear separations.
Very interesting case, I will look further into it. Thank you Dunc for sharing.
|
|
|
Post by nomihoudai on Dec 4, 2015 23:33:39 GMT
Come on guys, subspecies are not endemics of a country or place. Nice selection of L. boldenarum. I am still wondering if I should take off some months in 2017 to further study this species.
|
|
|
Post by nomihoudai on Nov 17, 2015 15:11:40 GMT
Kenya? When, who, did I miss anything? I think you forgot Russia and Lebanon. My condolence to any person, from any place, that suffered these past weeks.
|
|
|
Post by nomihoudai on Nov 9, 2015 20:33:19 GMT
It was a very nice day,...unfortunately I was extremely busy like always during the fair. As a seller I wish I could just go around and take a quiet look at all the specimens, but this is not possible when one wants to sell most of his stock. So now I am sitting at home and have to take a look at the fair through the pictures taken. It was a pleasure to meet Nicolas again after so many years. He also proved to be very effective at spotting the best deals. Next year he will offer a "spotting service", you can hire him for 1€ per minute and he will spot the specimens you want for the best price Going through the pictures I have noticed that the Syrian war has also taken its toll on butterflies. Euapatura mirza flies in Turkey close to the Syrian border in the region that is now flooded by war refugees. One seller probably expects this conflict to continue and anticipated prices up to 1000€ for this butterfly, and even 400€ for an A2 male. I have to say that I am glad that I got mine for 35€ back in the days... The prices for Parnassius autocrator also seem more unpredictable than the weather.
|
|
|
Post by nomihoudai on Nov 1, 2015 14:02:01 GMT
Here is some Satyrium, or Strymon that I photographed earlier this year in West Texas. I was disappointed by the lack of Lycaenidae, but I guess a small body is not good in a dry environment.
|
|