Post by wollastoni on Dec 1, 2017 16:50:58 GMT
Dear friends,
I am very happy to present you a new Delias species : Delias maaikeae described today in Sugapa.
Has been collected this year in the Cyclops Mts near West Papua main town, Jayapura.
It is a major discovery as very few Delias species from the main New Guinea island have been recently described, except those from the expeditions in the Foja Mts which were a totally unexplored area.
How come a new Delias species can be found in 2017 only few km from Jayapura ?
Various reasons :
- the Cyclop Mts are very steep, very hard to climb and non inhabitated. So very few paths there.
- it is a canopy species
- the Cyclop Mts area is now a reserve
1.2 : Delias maaikeae
3-4 : Delias bornemanni
5-6 : Delias nais
As you can see, it is close in patterns to Delias bornemanni which flies on the opposite of NG island, but it also shares some patterns with Delias nais which is well distributed in the rest of West Papua.
The upperside is very different from both species.
Full paper here : www.sugapa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/7-Chris-Davenport-et-al.-Delias-maaikeae.pdf
