there are several ancient synonyms of Papilio glaucus Linnaeus, 1758 from eastern USA, some of which may turn out to be senior synonyms of bjorkae Pavulaan, 2024 or the new taxon, solstitius.


Interesting, and that never occurred to me, though it should have, as I’ve questioned the validity of some of the early breeding and back cross tests, given the source material.

To my mind though, the important outcome is that MST has been given a universally agreed name. That allows it to be identified for discussion, and argument. Prior to “soltitius”, as pointed out in the paper, it had several monikers. As do bjorkae, spring form, and “near canadensis”.

Should a type show up that turns out to be solstitius is, to me, just an exercise to satisfy ICZN. It would really be accidental, because the type described then was all-encompassing of Appy, bjorkae, canadensis, etc. and was treated as such for a long time.

I think the greatest element in the paper- which was already known and published, but not common knowledge, is that solstitius is, if stuffed in pre-existing boxes- canadensis, not glaucus. If a type shows up and is solstius, and solstitius is rendered to a form, then the moniker canadensis would disappear.

John,

One problem that occurs to me is that there are several ancient synonyms of Papilio glaucus Linnaeus, 1758 from eastern USA, some of which may turn out to be senior synonyms of bjorkae Pavulaan, 2024 or the new taxon, solstitius.

The only extant lectotype specimen is pictured here:
https://data.nhm.ac.uk/media/linnean_ty ... efault.jpg
This is the lectotype of Papilio turnus Linnaeus, 1771, designated as lectotype by Honey & Scoble (2001, Linnaeus’s butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea and Hesperioidea. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 132: 277–399. doi:10.1006/zjls.2001.0265).
It is a male, and appears to be a summer generation specimen of P. glaucus. I assume this is not solstitius, but no-one really knows for certain whether some of the old names were based on specimens that actually belong to bjorkae or solstitius.

Probably, valid neotype designations should be made for Papilio glaucus Linnaeus, 1758, Papilio antilochus Linnaeus, 1758 and Papilio alcidamas Cramer, 1775 in order to fix these names as synonyms of the species currently known as Papilio glaucus. An attempt to designate neotypes was made by Pavulaan & Wright (2002, The Taxonomic Report, 3(7):1-20. https://lepsurvey.carolinanature.com/ttr/ttr-3-7.pdf) when they described Papilio appalachiensis. Unfortunately the four neotype designations in this publication are all invalid under the ICZN Code, since they do not conform to article 75, governing neotypes.

Adam.

I have been chomping at the bit for this paper, and Chuck has patiently answered so many of my questions via email over the past few months. I have been withholding a paper of my own that updates the Maine state list of butterflies, suspecting that this taxon occurs in the state. I am now confident to add this species, along with three others, to the Maine list since the publication of our book, Butterflies of Maine and the Canadian Maritime Provinces, in late 2023. I have collected a dozen of these tiger swallowtails in southern Maine over the past fifteen years, and I always suspected that they were something different. I even placed a label with the series, reading "Pterourus undescribed." Thanks to these authors, it now reads "Pterourus solstitius" (and yes, I prefer the genus Pterourus for this group).

Knowing that the paper was imminent, I had been monitoring the ZooKeys website over the past week. The paper was posted at about 10:45 am (EST) Friday morning, and I alerted Chuck shortly after. I congratulate the authors on such a thorough job of supporting the recognition of solstitius as a discrete species. I look forward to studying it further in Maine.

Nice work!
John

SW FL, Ft Myers area. Good proximity to areas “well studied” yet with plenty of areas nobody really wants to penetrate because it’s crappy conditions. Problem is, I don’t know the Leps so can’t tell something common from something new.

adamcotton wrote: Sat Feb 15, 2025 7:27 pm I was wondering whether that is in the pipe-line or not. Mind you, if it is the people working on it are unlikely to tell us. I certainly never disclose information about new taxa that I am working on until after publication, and that is the norm otherwise someone will rush in with a poor quality publication to get their name on the taxon.

Adam.

At any time, Scriber, Schmidt, Wang, or even most recently Pavulaan could have described MST with enough to meet the “oh yeah well prove me wrong” level. MST was no secret, it was low hanging fruit, and that’s what annoyed me. That and so little was known about it, particularly the range.


Spring Form is low hanging fruit. I think Pavulaan is onto something with bjorkae and “near canadensis.” I’ll bet $100 that our spring form is not glaucus, but is, like MST, closer to canadensis. Problem is getting COI at minimum to show it. The tests are unavailable to most citizen scientists.

Aside from some “low hanging fruit” my Solomon Islands material hasn’t even been closely looked at. The P Ulysses of course are no longer Ulysses. I probably have a dozen or more taxa that wouldn’t be hard to describe as new.

But my Solomons material will probably be donated first, and I’m moving away from Spring Form. There are other Tigers that merit review, beyond CA rutulus and AZ eurymedon. That said, and Trehpr has a point- does anyone care about slightly different Tigers even if scientifically they merit a taxonomic status? I don’t see anyone rushing out to either study or have in their collection both of the north and south split of what we lump under Maynardi.

There’s wierd stuff going on with Speyeria, I’ve seen enough of that in my bycatch, but I’m not touching that.

I had a good laugh from both of these, thanks for posting.

You could either put it online somewhere that can be found in a search and downloaded by anyone, or put the information online (such as here) so that people can request a copy.

Adam.

Chuck wrote: Sat Feb 15, 2025 1:24 pm So now that we have Midsummer Tiger presented, but admitted not everything known, I wonder what’s next. I’d do Spring Form but eurytides doesn’t get those up in Canada.

I was wondering whether that is in the pipe-line or not. Mind you, if it is the people working on it are unlikely to tell us. I certainly never disclose information about new taxa that I am working on until after publication, and that is the norm otherwise someone will rush in with a poor quality publication to get their name on the taxon.

Adam.

I am not sure whether Thierry Bouyer is on here, but he would know. He is a member of the sister forum, ICF, so perhaps ask there.

Adam.

What part of Florida do you plan to move to permanently?

Adam always has some excuse why he’s not as all knowing as he appears, but the sheer volume of such anecdotes makes me think it’s a cover up.

So now that we have Midsummer Tiger presented, but admitted not everything known, I wonder what’s next. I’d do Spring Form but eurytides doesn’t get those up in Canada.

Thanks gents. I’m definitely going to PDF it. Not sure past that though.

The other advantage is a pdf is searchable, so someone can easily find a particular word such as 'glaucus' or 'MST' without having to read the whole text if it's a huge 'tome'.

Adam.

Chuck wrote: Fri Feb 14, 2025 10:21 pm Don’t forget member Eurytides is also a co author and actually got me involved in this.

Ah, I didn't associate member 'eurytides' with a co-author as I don't know his real name. Congratulations to eurytides, and thanks for involving Chuck too!

eurytides wrote: Fri Feb 14, 2025 11:14 pm Adam, you must read every article that comes out every day lol. I thought for sure Chuck would post about it first.

Actually I found out about it because ResearchGate flagged the citation of one of my papers in my feed so I clicked on the notification and found out about the new paper, otherwise I wouldn't have known about it.

Adam.

Thank you very kindly 58chevy for your kind sentiments !

You are a gentleman and a scholar....

10 days. Sort of. We returned to the gate and have been at the airport 8 hours. Spirit Air sucks

I agree with Adam. PDF is the way to go.

Trehopr,
Regardless of its true taxonomy, your specimen is a gem!