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Post by nomihoudai on Dec 8, 2015 0:42:04 GMT
I have compiled some pics that I posted on Insectnet. As a different audience and group of people may lead to different types of discussions I want to share, and copy the thread here (instead of hyper linking). Please enjoy: Hi, when I first discovered Insectnet, the most interesting thing to me was looking at collections of other people, as I didn't have any real collection back then. I must have watched the video by Clark and Bill probably 10 times in a row when I discovered it when they were curating Pierids. Now I have a collection on my own and can share with other users, I hope some will enjoy. Since 3 years (yes, not that long), I am completely focusing on Lycaenidae. I collect them worldwide and there is about 5200 species. I used to have a big moth collection, and various butterflies, even Microlepidoptera, but keeping this collection became incompatible with my current life and I had to step down. I sold everything (several thousand specimen) for good earlier this year, EXCEPT for the Lycaenidae. This week, I finally received a cabinet by Paradox Company from Krakow, Poland. Since a few years I had dreamed of a proper cabinet, but I had to stick with as many used drawers as possible when having the moths, in the end I had around 120 of them, now I am back to 20. Each drawer contains one or several subfamilies of Lycaenidae, The upper 10 mostly tropical things and the bottom 10 Holarctic species. Yes I will not be able to house every species in this, but for the next 2 years I hope it will be enough. Currently I am curating the contents of my collection (after some unavoidable neglecting the last 2 years), if people enjoy the thread I might give some updates here on the process.
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Post by nomihoudai on Dec 8, 2015 0:43:05 GMT
One of the biggest subfamilies in Lycaenidae are the real blues, Polyommatinae. Obviously it is impossible to cram these into one drawer, currently Polyommatinae takes up 7 drawers of my cabinet, only Theclinae needs also as much space (also due to their larger size). They are organised as follows: Lysandra, Agrodiaetus, Plebejus etc., Polyommatus etc., Glaucopsyche etc., Jamides etc., and a junk drawer for any tropical Polyommatinae. This junk drawer obviously has a big burden upon its shoulders as this subfamily is very diverse in Africa and Asia, and nearly absent from South America. Here is the beginning of the process, a huge mess, around 190 specimen: I then spend 18 hours retyping my data labels into a proper file format, and identifying every single specimen in the drawer! I ended up with 51 different species and subspecies. I want to tell about a few of the highlights: * Leptotes pirithous and Lampides boeticus from nearly all of their range. L. p.: DRC, La Réunion, Greece, Italy, Spain. L. b.: DRC, La Réunion, Italy, Greece, India, and Indonesia. * There was a block of Prosotas, I had caught all of them in Java. I can still remember how this swarm of little butterflies was swarming around pieces of bark, like little flies. I was swinging my net through the swarm and packed the contents. Now, after 5 years I determined them, and I actually found 3 different species! Prosotas dubiosa subardates (Piepers & Snellen, 1918), Prosotas nora superdates (Fruhstorfer, 1916), Ionolyce helicon javanica Toxopeus, 1929. * When determining things I used online resources, and came across pics taken by our user cabintom, thanks for all the work! The pics were a help! * I seem to have the sister species of the Miami blue (Cyclargus thomasi) from Jamaica, Cyclargus shuturn K. Johnson & Bálint, 1995 * When looking at this drawer you will have seen 1% of all Lycaenidae worldwide.Unfortunately there was no space left for Anthene, I will move these to some other drawer.
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Post by nomihoudai on Dec 8, 2015 0:43:19 GMT
And here is the full list of drawer #10:
Acytolepis puspa (Horsfield, 1828) Anthene crawshayi (Butler, 1899) Anthene lunulata (Trimen, 1894) Anthene seltuttus seltuttus (Röber, 1886) Azanus isis (Drury, 1773) Azanus mirza (Plütz, 1880) Azanus natalensis (Trimen & Bowker, 1887) Brephidium exilis (Boisduval, 1852) Brephidium pseudofea pseudofea (Morrison, 1873) Cacyreus marshalli Butler, 1898 Caleta roxus (Godart 1823) Castalius rosimon (Fabricius, 1775) Cupido argiades (Pallas, 1771) Cupido comyntas (Godart, 1824) Cupido lacturnus (Godart, [1824]) Cupido minimus (Fuesslin, 1775) Cyclargus shuturn K. Johnson & Bálint, 1995 Discolampa ethion (Westwood, 1851) Claude Sinner Euchrysops malathana (Boisduval, 1833) Euchrysops osiris (Hopffer, 1855) Hemiargus ceraunus antibubastus Hübner, [1818] Hemiargus ceraunus gyas (Edwards, 1871) Hypolycaena philippus (Fabricius, 1793) Ionolyce helicon javanica Toxopeus, 1929 Lampides boeticus (Linnaeus, 1767) Leptotes marina (Reakirt, 1868) Leptotes pirithous (Linnaeus, 1767) Leptotes plinius (Fabricius, 1793) Luthrodes buruana (Holland, 1900) Lycaenopsis haraldus annamitica Eliot & Kawazoe, 1983 Neophitecops umbretta Grose-Smith, 1895 Oboronia punctatus (Dewitz, 1879) Oreolyce quadriplaga (Snellen 1892) Phlyaria cyara stactalla Karsch, 1895 Pithecops dionisius (Boisduval, 1832) Prosotas dubiosa subardates (Piepers & Snellen, 1918) Prosotas nora superdates (Fruhstorfer, 1916) Pseudozizeeria maha (Kollar 1848) Tarucus rosacea (Austaut, 1885) Tarucus ungemachi Stempffer, 1942 Triclema hades (Bethune-Baker, 1910) Tuxentius carana carana (Hewitson, 1876) Udara akasa akasa (Horsfield 1828) Udara rona catius (Fruhstorfer 1910) Upolampes evena (Hewitson, 1876) Uranothauma falkensteini (Dewitz, 1879) Uranothauma heritsia (Hewitson, 1876) Zizeeria knysna (Trimen 1862) Zizina labradus (Godart, [1824]) Zizula hylax (Fabricius, 1775)
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Post by nomihoudai on Dec 8, 2015 0:44:25 GMT
If anybody has any interest, or request, feel free to ask
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Post by trehopr1 on Dec 8, 2015 3:58:57 GMT
My sincere compliments and respect nomihoudai on the tremendous body of work you have undertaken curating your collection. Do you have a drawer or two of Theclinae we could see? Hairstreaks have always been my personal favorite among the Lycaenidae --- followed by the blues and then the coppers. Do you personally collect much of your own material (percentage-wise)? Are you able to purchase lycaenids at those various insect fairs in Europe? Those fairs have got to be an incredible resource literally at your fingertips.
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Post by cabintom on Dec 8, 2015 4:52:20 GMT
I'm very glad the photos were of use. I've actually been contemplating what to do with that collection of photos... I haven't had time or internet speeds to keep it updated lately, so I'm not sure that it's worth keeping up.
Are you aiming to one day collect all Lycaenidae species?
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Post by Paul K on Dec 8, 2015 5:07:38 GMT
* There was a block of Prosotas, I had caught all of them in Java. I can still remember how this swarm of little butterflies was swarming around pieces of bark, like little flies. I was swinging my net through the swarm and packed the contents. Now, after 5 years I determined them, and I actually found 3 different species! Prosotas dubiosa subardates (Piepers & Snellen, 1918), Prosotas nora superdates (Fruhstorfer, 1916), Ionolyce helicon javanica Toxopeus, 1929. I was picking up the blues one by one at one of the streams in Thailand and wanted to collect few of the same specimens in order to have small series. After returning back to my bungalow I have noticed to my "disappointment" that instead of 2 or 3 different species I have collected at least 8. They are so small and similar looking when fly around. Paul
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Post by nomad on Dec 8, 2015 6:10:37 GMT
A very well curated collection, thank you for sharing. I believe that you are compiling a World list of the Lycaenidae, will this be available on the web. Have you a favourite genus. I know that you visit many places to collect your own specimens. Any forthcoming planned trips for next year in search of Lycaenidae. I am particularly interested in Maculinea = Phengaris. Which genus name do you prefer to use. I guess I will stick with Maculinea.
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Post by africaone on Dec 8, 2015 8:19:49 GMT
what progress ! congratulation ... far from the first Lasio welcome to Lycaenid's lovers group. The most fascinating butterflies because of their life cycle, biology so diverse and specialised, and their beauty. Do you intend to study some of them ? When a specialised website ?
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Post by nomihoudai on Dec 8, 2015 9:11:51 GMT
Wow, a lot of questions, I am glad people enjoyed my curating. I will go through each of the question now: Thanks a lot, it is a lot of work indeed. But now that I have only the Lycaenidae it is much less work and I can manage to do it. Yes the Theclinae take up another 8 drawers, so actually they have the most space in my collection. (Amblypodiini; large Arhopala; small Arhopala; Chrysozephyrus; Theclini; Rapala, Deudorix, etc.; SA Eumaeini; Callophrys + Satyrium). The next drawer should then be something out of this subfamily, which I will curate soon. I still try to keep up with the collecting, but due to time constraints the amount of self collected specimen is very small in my collection. I am currently a PhD student, and "only" have 20 days of holidays per year. Take away 10 for family, friends, and other necessities and you are left with 2 weeks per year. I do not collect in Europe any more as I have everything that is within my car's reach. When I collect I colelct everything and try to trade the specimen with other people for Lycaenidae. Only problem there is that most people want Papilio, I am bad at catching Papilio, and Papilio collectors many times don't bother catching Lycaenidae Anyway, I would say 1/4 of my specimen come from direct trades, and the other 3/4 I buy. In the beginning when I was collecting I wanted to go the way of "only self caught or traded stuff", but when you want to hold every species of them in your hands once you must buy. Yes, I always buy a few things at the insect fair. Mostly the more expensive specimen as I can check to get a decent quality one. I then photograph it for my website and after that I very often sell them off again. Many times even a little bit cheaper than what I bought them for to get my funds back quickly. So always look out for me, you might do a real deal. I hope to be able to show my this year's Frankfurt catch before the end of the year.
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Post by nomihoudai on Dec 8, 2015 9:43:03 GMT
Of course one should just do as time permits, but the pictures had been handy to cross check the few specimen I have from DRC. Not as a physical specimen, this is impossible as some are just known form very few samples, but I do try to collect every single one as a picture. Along with keeping my own collection I have spend quiet some time the last 3 years travelling to Museums and taking pictures of their collection. This is where the www.label-butterflies.com started, a way for me to mine the data of these undigitized collections. Along with the labels I take high resolution pictures of dorsal, ventral, males, females. I have a few hundred species readily photographed now.
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Post by nomihoudai on Dec 8, 2015 10:01:27 GMT
Hi Peter,
Thanks. Yes, I have received the official copyright for the Bridges Catalogue Vol. 7. I have spend the last 2 years digitizing this, and the list, up to 1994 when the book was published is finally ready. The deal for the copyright was that I put it online and continue the list. I planned to get this ready by mid 2015, but unfortunately things got delayed. I hope to be able to write the server in the next 3 months. As there is 20000 names in Lycaenidae, and I plan on showing at least 4 pics of each there will be a tremendous computational effort behind this server. Therefore I have to program everything myself. I hope to be able to get a first version running in the next few months.
I have a few, I must say that Chrysoritis (=Poecilmitis) from South Africa is something that many times comes first to my mind when asked about a favorite genus. You have the red, orange of the Lycaeninae subfamily, but also the blue of the Polyommatinae, amazing genus. I don't have any in my collection yet, but I hope to be able to visit South Africa in the next 5 years. Or maybe someone is able to trade these with me.
My next flight is booked for Costa Rica, in mid January. First time for me with South American fauna. I hope to be able to take some good pics.
The more I read on them, the more confused I get. So far every paper going for Phengaris is DNA only when I understood it correctly, and none takes into account times, reasons for a divergence, or the actual origin of these species. For me it is very odd to have an East Asian tropical forest species in the same genus than European, Russian low shrub flyers. (Sorry for my weird wording, I am not a biologist by training). It feels like calling a Bhutanitis as Zerynthia to me. Currently I still stick with Maculinea and Phengaris, but I may also be wrong on that.
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Post by nomihoudai on Dec 8, 2015 10:11:58 GMT
Hi Thierry How many years ago is this now? I think it could be close to 5. Yes, things have changed a lot. Yes, for me the most interesting is that they cover basically any habitat on a global scale. You study these, and you studied everything. They will be handy for future research plans. They also span the whole spectrum of colors in nearly any combination, and don't take that much space, you can put 200 into a single drawer. Perfect for the student with little space. Also there is so many of them, if somebody is focusing his research one one group of them you just switch to another For example I will not touch anything Libert is going after, no need to try and do something, that he can do better anyways. Yes I do intend to do more serious work on them. As written before, I have the copyright for that 500 pages list, and I have finally been able to digitize it. Now I have to write the server and then the 'Lycaenidae of the World' project can go online. It should become a free online resource for researchers AND amateurs. The amount of work necessary for it is incredible, but the goal comes within reach.
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Post by nomad on Dec 8, 2015 20:02:24 GMT
Hi Claude.
Thank you for taking the time to answer everyone's questions. I wish you every success in your massive online project, it will be a valuable resource. I also hope that you find some interesting Lycaenidae in Costa Rica and look forward to hearing how your quest went and see some images on your return.
Having just read ' Nabokov's Blues, I wondered have any of the Dominican republic endemics such as Leptotes idealus found there way into private collections or is only the type series known. Also, is the Jamaican Leptotes perkinsae found in any private collections and is it a rarity.
Although Science is above any price, do ultra rare/ paratype specimens of Lycaenidae command high prices.
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Post by nomihoudai on Dec 8, 2015 23:31:32 GMT
Hi Peter.
Thanks. Even if the weather or season will not be that great for them (actually I don't know), I will have a blast taking pictures of birds and other things. But hopefully, I will also be lucky on the Lycaenidae part.
I have to admit that I didn't have the time to read the book yet. I don't think the Caribbean specimen are that rare in private collections unless I am missing something? I do for example have a few from there as many people pass there for their holidays. Yes most of them stay in the lowland areas and the species the encounter are not that exceptional, but there is also collectors going to different places.
Yes, I am after doing proper science, but to afford all of this I sometimes have to deal with butterflies. Lycaenidae are not that expensive, compared to other groups. The most expensive I can actually think of, and have heard of are Lycaena dispar dispar specimens. I never heard about any Lycaenid being above 500€. There is a few in the range of 100€-300€. The funny part about the paratypes is that some of them can be had from 5€ to 20€ (yes, I do have one that I gave 5€ for...). With these you have to consider that you are actually paying 25€ for something where the real value of a specimen is closer to 3€, so still a big inflation.
If you want to collect everything for your own collection the worst part will not be the price, but the fact that many species will never ever be offered to you or it is impossible finding someone that sells them. I had recently a discussion with somebody that wanted to finish all of Lycaenini. But how do you think you can get things like Lycaena eberti from Afghanistan? Lycaena tseng I have also never seen for sale (not like the other 3 species of that group). How would you get a Iophanus pyrrhias, the Guatemalan Copper? As far as I know their habitat is protected and I have not seen that many butterflies from Guatemala so far. And I won't even start about the 2 Melanolycaena species from Papua. I have photographed some of these species in museums, owning them in my collection, most likely impossible. Currently also a fair amount of Lycaenidae live in inaccessible areas due to the worsening political and humanitarian situation in the Middle East. In Frankfurt I saw a pair of Micropsyche from Afghanistan for 200€, when I came back it was sold. If the country was stable you could probably get them in decent quantities as Lycaenidae like to swarm and proliferate. That's a lot of money for something as tiny as the fingernail of my pinky.
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