Avinoff's Colias.

[nomad]

Here are a few of Dr Andrey Avinoff's (1884-1949) Colias from Oxford. Avinoff was a Russian entomologist who emigrated to America where he was a director at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History for 20 years and said to be one of the World's greatest butterfly collectors. Not being a Colias collector, I know little of the species shown here, or the rarity but the data on these specimens is cetainly worth viewing.

  

[bobw]

The pair of C. cocandica are from Beik Pass which is the TL of ssp. hinducucica Tytler, 1926 so they're probably topotypes.

I can't make out the locality on the C. alpherakii Staudinger 1882 (note the correct authorship), maybe one of our Russian speakers can help.

The label on the C. ladakensis highlights an interesting dilemma.  The name in general use is C. ladakensis C. Felder & R. Felder, 1865, but it also mentions C. shipkee Moore, 1865.  The name shipkee was published in October 1865, ladakensis was published after October 1865 but before the end of that year, therefore Moore's name should take priority.  C. ladakensis has been in almost universal use so we chose to preserve it in the interest of stability, although this can only be determined by the ICZN; unfortunately shipkee cannot be considered as a nomen oblitum as it has been used once since 1900.  Tagalang La is a well-known locality for this species.

Bob