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Post by Adam Cotton on Jul 19, 2019 21:47:42 GMT
it came from the Leon Laglaize expedition and (supplied by?) Depuiset. Perhaps I misunderstood "à feu Depuiset" in my original comment. Does it actually mean something like 'financed by' or 'at the order of'? I am sure a French speaker can advise. Adam.
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entomofou
Junior Aurelian
Posts: 91
Country: France
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Post by entomofou on Jul 20, 2019 6:26:10 GMT
It means that this person passed away.
You can read "from M. Depuiset who died before this paper's publication".
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Post by Adam Cotton on Jul 20, 2019 8:42:57 GMT
It means that this person passed away. You can read "from M. Depuiset who died before this paper's publication". Ah, thank you very much for the explanation. Adam.
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Post by Adam Cotton on Jul 20, 2019 11:42:15 GMT
I see that the French naturalist F.H.H. Guillemard (Papuan insect Foundation) visited Waigeo, Batanta, Mysol (Misool), Jobi (Yapen) and the Birdshead Peninsula in 1883 - 1884 It seems that Peter answered my question before I asked it. My fault for not reading more carefully first time. are there any records of collectors visiting Yapen before 1888? So it is possible that Guillemard could have collected the female type on Yapen and have sent the specimen to Europe in time for Oberthür to describe it as an aberration in 1888. Adam.
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Post by nomad on Jul 20, 2019 20:50:14 GMT
I thought the type goliath specimen came from Leon Laglaize. I believe he lived in Paris. Perhaps our French friends know more about him. As far as I can see the author Attal must believe that Laglaize sent a collector to Yapen, although this nowhere mentioned, so he must be relying on the morphology of the single specimen for the change?
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Post by Adam Cotton on Jul 21, 2019 6:18:16 GMT
As far as I can see the author Attal must believe that Laglaize sent a collector to Yapen, although this nowhere mentioned, so he must be relying on the morphology of the single specimen for the change? Indeed that is the weak link in Attal's argument that the type came from Yapen. He is relying solely on phenotype. Adam.
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Post by nomad on Jul 24, 2019 10:59:12 GMT
Quick to take advantage of the newly described subspecies O. goliath naturalis ATTAL, 2019 (however flimsy the evidence for the change) it has already appeared on a dealer's list and ebay at a much higher price than when it was listed as the nominate from Waigeo!!
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Post by Adam Cotton on Jul 24, 2019 11:34:33 GMT
Russian seller? Presumably without paperwork too.
Adam.
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Post by nomad on Jul 24, 2019 12:39:23 GMT
A bona-fide well known German seller, the dealer at least, with CITES permits always. I am not sure of the ebay seller, as I just saw that posted on the Birdwing social media group without a link.
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Post by mothylator on Oct 12, 2019 17:25:13 GMT
The authors also ascribed holotypes to infraspecific taxa. It was appear that to some extent the authors do not follow the ICZN Code, and have made up their own for Ornithoptera, which has never really been discussed for such a major work on butterflies. However, there is a long history of naming aberrations, forms etc, so its nothing new, and it does have some value in my opinion. What is different is that everything in their book is a form, including aberrations. The scientific definition of subspecific taxons remains problematic. Even the definition of a species, given that evolutionary divergence and speciation is presumably occurring continuously around us, remains a convenient and ephemeral approximation. I've spent far too many hours trying and failing to see the scientific rationale for a great many subspecific taxons when applied to single or small numbers of individuals. However, I can see the biological and natural history interest in making observations on a local population basis. Hypotheses regarding the predominating underlying reasons for differences in a particular area can be tested. Founder effects? Local habitat adaptations? Genetic drift in response to local differences in competition compared with other populations elsewhere? Influx, metapopulations, isolation, relic populations, etc. But I can't swallow the idea that different populations MUST be subspecies, nor that philatelic collecting of related but phenotypically subtly varied populations of a species has scientific merit unless there is a hypothesis to test, or an adaptive principle to explore / elucidate / illustrate. After all, collecting to "support" a taxonomic point is another form of bias ie selective incomplete ascertainment. I welcome simplification of the taxonomic mess of infraspecific taxons, and advocate weeding out pointless subspecies taxons. Not that I think all other views are wrong, and of course I understand that infraspecific taxonomic publications are CV-fillers ;-)
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