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Post by jshuey on Apr 5, 2016 12:47:17 GMT
Out of boredom, I just checked combinations between Indianapolis, Indiana to Fort-de-France to Cayenne. $1,400 with over nights on both ends
j John , that is not really a good deal. I can get from Toronto to Cayenne I belive it was thru Panama and Guiana deal for $2050 CAN which is about $1600 US if I add trip from Toronto to any city in USA it will be more or less the same plus I have to deal with US customs which treated me really bad in the past therefore I don't want to put my foot on the US soil having some insects in my possession. Paul Agreed - not a great deal for NA travelers. Especially when you add in two nights on "tourist trap" islands.
I also priced out flights to southern Brazil for a work trip, and I can get there a lot cheaper and so much faster.
john
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Post by jshuey on Apr 4, 2016 18:06:18 GMT
Out of boredom, I just checked combinations between Indianapolis, Indiana to Fort-de-France to Cayenne. $1,400 with over nights on both ends
j
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Post by jshuey on Apr 3, 2016 20:15:55 GMT
Trehopr1 The only draw back is the flight cost. Toronto-Cayenne: $2200 CAN ( French airline skyjacked the fare in lack of competition ) Compare to: Toronto-Lima ( Peru ): $800.00CAN Toronto-Bangkok: $1450.00CAN Toronto-Nicaragua: $700.00CAN I've never explored this, bit I've heard that you can take a North America carrier to some of the Caribbean Islands, and then a hopper flight into Cayenne for about half the price. But it costs a day of travel time on each end, plus hotel on the island.
John
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Post by jshuey on Mar 25, 2016 16:26:31 GMT
John , you misunderstood me . You need permit to collect , but you don't have one cause you just went there for vacation not to collect but being there you found some nice specimens and you want to bring them with you. Paul
Indeed - I misunderstood you.
I would wonder what my son might do, if a few dead insects were found in his luggage by accident? But generally - they don't let me take an insect net with us on vacation because of the odds of such accidents happening!
j
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Post by jshuey on Mar 25, 2016 15:25:24 GMT
Hi Paul,
I think that essentially everything I do would be the same - only in place of my permits, I'd document that the country in question has no collecting regulations(and I'd send that info to the appropriate FWS person in advance just like I would my permits). One thing I forgot to mention, is that I always call the appropriate office before I send my information to them. That way it goes to a specific person at that office. I use a fax to send it to them, and I keep the fax receipt as part of my records that I sent it in advance (to that specific agent).
I'd have copies of all this plus my import form (form 3-177) in hand when I came through the airport. Like I said - FWS is really never there to greet me, so I get routed through the agricultural inspection line, they look at the bugs to make sure that they are dead (usually an X-ray and a 30-second glance is all they do), I hand them copies of my paperwork to pass on to FWS (this often confuses them, so I'm guessing that they typically just throw most of this away - but occasionally they seem to realize that these are required forms). AS long as I manage to catch my next flight, I don't care what they do with it!
John
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Post by jshuey on Mar 25, 2016 13:01:51 GMT
That means if you need a permit to collect species A in country X - you'd better have your paperwork in order.
john
Easier said than done:
USFWS "How do I know this export paperwork isn't forged?"
another time: USFWS "Well, we're going to call and make sure you're ligit" I note the address on the USFWS international agency contact list ME "good luck. That building burned down four years ago and hasn't been replaced"
And on and on....
They do suggest that you contact them in advance of returning to the US, and that if possible, you fax them a copy of your permits. I know that is sometimes difficult - as in the permit is often picked up once you are in the host country (and it can be difficult to send copies from there).
It's worth noting that I am not a commercial importer - so I don't move into the US bugs more than a couple of times per year. But I have never experienced any of the problems others mention and over the years this includes perhaps 35 trips to Latin America. During the heart of the Belize work, we'd come back with perhaps 20,000+ dead insects on each trip (mostly beetles packed in alcohol). No problemo.
Like I said, when I jump through all the hoops, there is never a FWS staffer present to meet me at the airport..., and I breeze right through.
John
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Post by jshuey on Mar 23, 2016 13:06:41 GMT
I have bugs mailed to me in the US on a regular basis. I have never had a problem - and they never go through a customs inspection. I am probably taking a chance here - and might loose a trade someday. They're just bugs, so no big deal.
As Paul notes, carrying bugs through airports is a different matter. But again - all you have to do is follow the rules, have all your paperwork in place and all is smooth. Calling ahead and notifying FWS of your exact arrival information is critical. That seems to insure that they never show up, and you just breeze through with an agricultural inspection (all they care about is do you have a copy of the paperwork that they can hand off to FWS, and that the insects are dead).
It's worth noting that FWS service feels that their job is to enforce global laws on wildlife trade. There are actually very few laws against collecting insects in the US (endangered species and state/national parks aside). Most people run into problems with Lacey Act and CITES regulations - and all the US laws say is that we will enforce other country's laws regarding wildlife. That means if you need a permit to collect species A in country X - you'd better have your paperwork in order.
john
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Post by jshuey on Mar 23, 2016 12:57:28 GMT
Surprisingly the authors only recorded 7 species of Papilionidae amongst all the other species. Perhaps this is because the altitude is already 1,300m at the lowest point in the park, so all the lowland species are absent. Adam.
this is probably because they only collect with a camera. Still an impressive effort
john
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Post by jshuey on Mar 13, 2016 15:23:48 GMT
I'd say that you have done quite well in finding all those brilliant little gems. I've always found lycaenids the most unlikely group encountered when out collecting. I have collected in Ecuador, Bolivia, and the Dominican Republic and between all 3 trips I have no more than 15 specimens representing 7 or 8 species ! I suppose they are just so easy to overlook when there is so much else catching ones attention. If one perhaps specializes on just looking for these little fellows than perhaps more things are seen. Wonderful variety you have.
To be honest - I cheat a bit. Most of these are from Brazil and Belize - work related. I usually hire 1 or 2 students or volunteers to sample along side me. Hairstreaks are often just "dumb luck" - you are at the right place at the right time. That makes me 2-3 time more lucky - right? Plus - this really is work - and we are out from dawn to dusk every day. We are out in the early morning, when some species are closer to the ground.
Plus, in Belize, I know what I'm doing. We spend 3-4 days at each spot. If I find some short flowering trees - I hit them a couple of times a day for several days. There are a couple of hill tops that we always try and hit because these always have great leps on them - hairstreaks included. We did a poster about one of these at www.researchgate.net/publication/276119544_The_Outlier_Peak_in_Cockscomb_Basin_Belize_-_Small_mountain_large_contribution_to_the_fauna_of_Belize. We spend most of our time in the forest - and there are often lots of hairstreaks in the low vegetation along shaded trails. The majority of these are Calycopis, so most people ignore them after a while, but lots of other species are hidden away in there as well.
One last factor - we don't really chase down too many swallowtails or morphos. The interns try to, but I just sight ID them and record the data. That creates more time for the smaller species - and our motto for them is - if it flies, it dies.
John
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Post by jshuey on Mar 12, 2016 21:37:21 GMT
in the sprit of posting "attractive" hairstreaks - here are the first three drawers from my collection. Like most of the collection - the curation is a bit of a mess, but you get the point... . Perhaps this summer I'll add another case of drawers, and get things spread out more!
John Attachments:
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Post by jshuey on Mar 10, 2016 19:03:41 GMT
I'm old enough that my wife and I have pondered this question. Assuming that the world economy doesn't completely collapse, we should have the resources needed to do what ever makes us happy.
We love Central America and have discussed living in Belize, Guatemala or Mexico. But as you get to know the countries and cultures, you realize how corruption and injustice pervades everything - even in a country like Costa Rica, craziness is never far out of sight. So, I think we are at the point that we would never permanently move to Latin America. You have to be able to have a safe haven, and as screwed up as the US is (and may be in the near future), it is still basically a sane and safe country.
Plus, I still want to maintain an insect collection. I can't see doing that if you lived full time in Latin America. Even if you could defend it against mold and pests, what happens when you are dead?
I think the alternative model we are looking at is one of extended sojourns to exotic localities. The winter in the Andes. and summer in the cool mountains of Guatemala. Four to six months every year spent on 2-3 slow-motion vacations mostly renting cottages and soaking in new cultures. Then head back home, where I see the rest of the year spent dealing with real life and, of course, spreading leps. A short trip to Paris or Rome every now and then as a traditional vacation.
We used to talk a lot about owning our own cottage in Belize or Chiapas - and I think that would be a total blast. But then you are pretty much locked into that place for the rest of your life - and it's a big world out there.
John
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Post by jshuey on Mar 10, 2016 14:56:54 GMT
I thought that I would share the genus I find most frustrating - Calycopis. Actually, most of the genus is fun, easy enough to identify, and rare enough that you are happy when you catch them. Many of these are also subtly beautiful as you can see in drawer 1. They are like one-centimeter Morphos!
All told there are 12 species known from Belize - and I bet there are at least three others that are hiding out there somewhere!
It is the detritovores that make you crazy - these are the very common "red banded hairstreaks" of Latin America. They all look alike in the field (actually in the collection as well!). The larvae eat the fungi that decompose leaf litter in tropical forests - so they can be abundant, and if you actually look for them - very common along deeply shaded trails. In Belize there should be four detritovore species - despite all those bugs in drawer two (and the last row in drawer 1), I have only three - quintana, drusilla and origo. You can not separate females of origo and drusilla reliably - except at one spot in Belize where just males origo occur (where I assume that associated females are also origo). The two large unit trays on the right half of drawer 2 are unassociated females that will probably never be identified!
C. isobeon should also be in Belize and I have three odd males from ~1,000m that are probably origo, but I will dissect them to be sure. The search for isobeon underpins the number of specimens in my collection.
I thought that I'd show these drawers because they are perhaps different than what most of you have in your collections. The bugs are mostly field collected, pretty beat up, and the presentation is pretty rough. I use unit trays because the collection is always growing in directions that I cannot predict - they allow me to shuffle bugs without handling every specimen.The tags are geographic identifiers - pink for Belize, red is south America (mostly Brazil and Peru), green is southern Central America and blue is Mexico. That lets me scan drawers quickly to find bugs when I am curating the collection.
The collection serves my purposes - which mostly revolve around understanding distributions in Belize and species identification in general. Like my entire collection, I caught about 80% of the bugs you see.
John
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Post by jshuey on Mar 8, 2016 16:18:55 GMT
Just last week I saw a 2 week return-flight only to Cancún for 220 Euro! Unfortunately work was an obstacle.... But two weeks to collect at Peninsula Yucatan! Wow, me like! Jan
You would have been broken hearted to be in the Yucatan in March. Its the heart of the dry season, and many of the trees shed their leaves. Needless to say, insect diversity it at its lowest. It can look like a temperate forest on a snow-free winter day - only HOT!
Unless you are headed to mountains, the best time for northern Central America is mid-July - November. It's wet and muddy and full of insects.
John
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Post by jshuey on Mar 8, 2016 16:05:16 GMT
Ever since I got my hands on Torben Larsen's African Hesperiidae manuscript my interest in the group has grown. I would absolutely love to see what Neotropical Hesperiidae are like... I assume they're more colourful than their African cousins.
When we started the Belize project, we made our own "field guides". The BOA web site was not up yet, and even if it was - where do you get WiFi in the middle of Belize? Here are thumbnails the skippers as they stood about 15 years ago - they give you a nice feel for neotropical diversity at the "diluted northern edge" of the tropics. As of today - we have about 320 species of skippers known from Belize - so about 50% of the species are shown.
All told, there are probably between 3-4,000 species of skippers in the neotropics - it's pretty easy to hit undescribed species in the field. I think we have up to 8 new species from the Belize work.
j
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Post by jshuey on Mar 7, 2016 17:44:04 GMT
John here - lurking from across the pond (InsectNet) for a couple of years. So I finally decided to register and join the forum.
I'm old enough to ponder my retirement and have been collecting seriously since I entered University some 40 years ago. Although I have a sizable collection of US bugs, I probably have not spread an insect from north of Mexico in over 20 years. My heart is in the New World tropics and I collect all butterflies from the region especially Hesperiidae, Lyceanidae and Riodinidae. I'm lucky enough that I can work occasionally in the tropics and between work and pleasure - 18 trips and counting to Belize, 5 to Brazil, 6 in the Caribbean, 10 to southern Mexico and adjacent Guatemala. I have a couple of trips tentatively planned for 2016.
Lately I've been part of a group working on the butterflies of Belize. We have documented over 1,000 species now and it is very fulfilling working on this project - I have ~95% of the species in my collection. I probably only add 20 "new" species to my collection per trip- but man I can't wait to get back down and see what those 20 species are - because I'm telling you - they are pretty darn rare!
In real life, I work as a conservation biologist and restoration ecologist at The Nature Conservancy in Indiana, and I lead a group of 15-20 people who manage ~35,000 acres of the rarest and most interesting habitats in the Midwest!
John
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