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Post by jshuey on Apr 5, 2019 12:40:33 GMT
Seriously, get yourself a big net (like in Paul's avatar pic), and get yourself to a good tropical location (not a fancy hotel hotel - find some shack out in the bush where you are surrounded by high-quality habitat). Then you'll understand the answer to your question. It's not even close.
John
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Post by jshuey on Apr 1, 2019 20:13:43 GMT
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Post by jshuey on Mar 27, 2019 17:56:55 GMT
The are mites...
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Post by jshuey on Mar 18, 2019 20:35:33 GMT
That's really cool, John -- Thanks for the heads-up! Amazing that no one had compared the genitalia of these things before. Who knew? Cheers, jh People have looked at genitalia - but it was all very confusing. The intense mimicry dulls the senses I think. For example, I have an undescribed bug that looks identical to Astraptes enotrus (one of the few bugs that remian in Astraptes) but has genitalia like the "fulgerator" group (in Telegonus now). I've had a short series of that bug for years, and simply did not know what to do with it! Likewise, look at the two "Autochton" in the figure above - cellus and pseudocellus. I dissected these when I reviewed the paper a few months back, just to make sure the authors didn't screw it up. As it turns out, these bugs are not even closely related based on genitalia, but it took genetic sequencing to make people look beyond their almost identical wing patterns and see the obvious. And neither species is an Autochton now! Janzen has speculated that these bugs have settled into a series of "I fly so fast that you can't catch me" color patterns that birds simply don't chase. But that does not fully explain how precise many of the convergent patterns really are. They are indeed amazing bugs - at least as skippers go. john
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Post by jshuey on Mar 18, 2019 13:50:38 GMT
Genomes of skipper butterflies reveal extensive convergence of wing patterns" by Wenlin Li, Qian Cong, Jinhui Shen, Jing Zhang, Winnie Hallwachs, Daniel H. Janzen and Nick V. Grishin www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/03/14/1821304116
A genomic revision of the "big, pretty" skippers (Eudaminae) was just published that indicates that most of our understanding of genera such as Urbanus, Astraptes, and Polythrix is completely incorrect, biased by species that look alike (for example big and blue or with long tails) but are distantly related at best. In addition, several new tribes are described and many species are re-instated. Here's a short a quote from the paper that gives you a feel for the findings - "We found misclassifications to be widespread across Eudaminae and attribute them to convergence driven by the selection for large mimicry rings. This convergence is not confined to one or two basic patterns, but is more diverse. Some patterns are common in both the Old and New World, and, in addition to skippers, include butterflies from other families and even moths, flies, and beetles. We find five different phenotypes (Fig. 2) that parallel each other in two genera (Telegonus and Cecropterus) and their more distant relatives (outgroups): (i) greenish bases of brown wings, white stripe on the forewing, and hindwing with a white tail and margins; (ii) metallic-blue wing bases, and forewing with white stripe (20); (iii) brown forewing with a yellow stripe across and apical white spots; (iv) cream-white, semitranslucent spots on the brown forewing; and (v) brown wings, and hindwing with yellow tornus." Because this is a PNAS paper, the authors are limited to 6 pages. So - the supplemental material is essentially a revision of the subfamily with many newly re-instated species here -https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/suppl/2019/03/15/1821304116.DCSupplemental/pnas.1821304116.sapp.pdf .
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Post by jshuey on Feb 11, 2019 21:18:06 GMT
In the spirit of this topic, I will tell you about a place that is always the right place - regardless of the time. The Outlier Peak in Belize. The very first time we visited the site, I set a bait trap as we neared the summit, and an Agrias aedon rodriguezi landed on the side of the trap while I was placing the bait in it. As it turns out, we've seen this species every time we visited the Outlier. This Agrias has a mimic, and the only place in Belize we have ever seen it is on the Outlier. In the intense tropical sunlight – it is almost impossible to tell Siderone syntyche syntyche from Agrias aedon as they zoom around at warp speed - electric blue and red. To see this amazing and rare mimic go to : www.butterfliesofamerica.com/L/imagehtmls/Nymph/Siderone_syntyche_syntyche_M_BELIZE_Stann_Creek_District_Cockscomb_Outlier_Peak_20-VII-05_JS1_i.htmIn short, this "hill top" is the hottest collecting spot in all of Belize, and we expect to find new species for the country every time we visit the Outlier. It takes 3-4 hours to hike there, and the last kilometer is a serious vertical hike. The peak rises above the adjacent forest, and the ridge supports a very short, scrub forest on top. So, like you see in the photo below, you can literally pick bugs off the top of the highest trees within an intact forest that goes for miles and miles. If you want to access the western part of the peak – you actually do stuff on a cliff face that you can’t tell your wife about (or she’ll never let you go back again). On the poster - the western peak is that knobby hill in the background. We usually take camping gear and spend a night so that we can collect most of two days (Parides childrenae flies in the area we set up our hammocks in). We did a poster a few years ago about the site for a meeting - and if you blow it up, you can see it here: www.researchgate.net/publication/276119544_The_Outlier_Peak_in_Cockscomb_Basin_Belize_-_Small_mountain_large_contribution_to_the_fauna_of_BelizeJohn Attachments:
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Post by jshuey on Feb 6, 2019 16:19:45 GMT
I’ve pondered this from my Belize experience, where we have been documenting the fauna. With over 100 species known from single captures for the country, I guess I have been lucky relative to the “random encounter” of rarely seen species. But here are two better examples from our 20th trip, where we really were in the spot for a couple of great bugs.
In 2016, we were supposed to be sampling the “beginning of the rainy season” in Belize. But the rain had not yet started – so everything was incredibly dry. On the edge of the logging town (if you can call it a town) of Douglas de Silva, we found an abandoned road that led up a hill to where the big shoots used to live – hill top cabins, now falling down, that caught a breeze occasionally. The town - Douglas de Silva is in pine habitat, but the hill is an adjacent limestone feature that supports broadleaf forest. There were a couple of low-growing trees trying to bloom (we did really well on some big skippers) but otherwise everything was very dry. But along the road, we encountered a hairstreak that was not supposed to be that far north in Central America - Porthecla porthura. Over the course of a long day, we managed to catch 5 males flying across the narrow road, as they landed on low growing shrubs. Two days later, we saw an additional male – but nothing after that as we stopped to collect over the next few days. That first day was really it for the site. Since then, we bagged an addition male from similar forest about 20 km south. That is it...
Later on that same trip, we decided we wanted to sample some of the ridge-backs that drop down from the Maya Mountain pine forest towards the rainforest dominated valleys to the east. These old logging roads are impossibly steep – I do not see how they get the timber back up slope because it is pretty difficult just to walk up and down certain parts of the road. At one point, where the road crossed a narrow ridge-top saddle, we noticed a medium sized satyr zooming through the tall forest grasses on the ridge sides. Occasionally, one would fly across the road – and it was flying so fast, I knew that I had never seen the species. They never landed, just zoomed around. I finally figured out a spot where they regularly popped out on to the road, and managed to snag the first Magneuptychia alcinoe known from Belize. Over the next two weeks, we returned to the ridge two more times, and managed to collect a total of 9 specimens from that exact site – plus one other specimen about 2km further down the road – that’s it for the known range in Belize at the moment. We collected a handful of other great bugs on that road, including the only Astraptes apastus known from Belize, but those are just the more typical random encounters you come to expect when you are in the field.
John
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Post by jshuey on Jan 31, 2019 21:23:50 GMT
Why? It looks like a lot of your heart went in to making this.
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Post by jshuey on Jan 30, 2019 14:17:23 GMT
Xerces Blue - now extinct... but once common in the fog-zone along the beach in San Francisco. Here are some I owned a few years ago. John Attachments:
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Post by jshuey on Jan 2, 2019 14:12:45 GMT
As long as humidity is not a problem in your collection - it doesn't really matter.
John
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Post by jshuey on Aug 29, 2018 13:10:33 GMT
In Belize, in the beginning of the rainy season, you see lots of Phoebis and related genera flying northward especially along the coast towards the drier Yucatan forests. It is especially noticeable along the coast, where you actually see a stream of butterflies following the beach. But further inland, if you are paying attention, you will also notice that they are all flying purposefully northward as well.
I've also seen the moth, Urania fulgens, do the same thing. They look like really fast black swallowtails flying cross country - but always in one direction. They fly north in Belize, but I've seen them moving west in the Yucatan. We encountered them in mass once at a light in Belize - and John Calhoun wrote about it (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303897171_Massing_of_Urania_fulgens_at_lights_in_Belize_Lepidoptera_Uraniidae). Jan Meerman says that the reported hostplant for U. fulgens is not known from Belize - and that the adults somehow know that it grows further north in the Yucatan.
I have never seen the reverse migration for either of these two groups.
John
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Post by jshuey on Aug 24, 2018 20:04:46 GMT
The sun shown brightly, the skies were clear and mostly blue, and the weather was a sumptuous 76 degrees. Picturesque day ! The Verdant field was alive with life and wildflowers of all kinds showed their smiling faces toward the sun. You field is either a native or planted prairie. I see compass plant, rosin weed, rattlesnake master, grey cone-flower, monarda, stiff goldenrod and so on in there amoung the warm-season grasses. These sites are almost always loaded with butterflies - thanks to all the flowers. It's a great shot! j
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Post by jshuey on Aug 22, 2018 13:02:21 GMT
Marbled Underwing (Catocala marmorata) Edwards 1864 The picture above is that of a friends specimen which he collected in Southern Illinois on July.25.1992 It is the only known record thus far for the state...The species is fairly common right across the Wabash River in Indiana. Look for Illinois habitats that include Swamp Cottonwood - which is the likely host. Bottomland hardwoods such as along the Cache River, Beall Woods, or hardwoods along the Little Wabash River seem likely. Adults rest on large white oaks (overcup oak in Indiana) during the day and can be flushed by tapping. john
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Post by jshuey on Jul 30, 2018 12:45:30 GMT
Better to use dorsal and ventral rather than recto and verso. bobw can give chapter & verse on the reasons why recto/verso does not really apply to specimens (they are apparently printers' terms for the opposing sides of a page) but became popular after Bd'A used them in his books. Adam. Maybe "recto/verso" is also a French language thing? I grew up using those terms in various applications. I think I'll do a mock up without the labelling to see if what's being presented it's still clear. If I copy the image and paste it into a photo editor - then I can barely see the 1 X 1 grid that underlies the photos. I'd just stick a singular scale bar in there and be done with it. j
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Post by jshuey on Jul 29, 2018 23:31:59 GMT
Great photos and the presentation is fine. But scale bars would be great. Not knowing these bugs, I can't tell if the smaller ones are really smaller, or just lower resolution.
John
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