Papilio bjorkae (Pavulaan, 2024) Tiger Swallowtail

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Re: Papilio bjorkae (Pavulaan, 2024) Tiger Swallowtail

Post by adamcotton »

Chuck wrote: Mon Oct 28, 2024 6:10 pm AFAIK there are no laws requiring compliance with ICZN so in theory English as a Second Language or those who don't speak English could still publish a new taxon. In practice though most publishing channels are going to force compliance. Just like laws, ICZN goes on for pages and pages in minute detail, and to understand and memorize the rules could take a long time- years?
There are indeed no laws mandating compliance with the Code, and it is absolutely voluntary. Indeed, some communities within Zoology do not follow certain articles - for instance the vast majority of Lepidopterists ignore the gender agreement articles, generally agreeing to use original spellings except for a few cases (e.g. Byasa latreillei rather than the originally published latreillii because everyone has used the subsequent spelling since the name was described). As an example, Lepidopterists regard Papilio multicaudata as the correct spelling, rather than using a -us ending to agree with the masculine genus name. When a species is moved to a different genus Lepidopterists do not change the ending of the species name to agree with the gender of the new genus.

Also, Herpetologists have decided to ignore publications by certain authors, even if those names are older; as they generally regard the proscribed authors as unethical.

With regard to language, there is absolutely no requirement that descriptions be published in any particular language at all. A new name in a paper written in (for example) Chinese or Indonesian would be absolutely available, although it is usual to include at least a summary in a 'major' language. There is a recommendation about this issue, but it is not mandatory:
Recommendation 13B. Language. Authors should publish diagnoses of new taxa in languages widely used internationally in zoology. The diagnoses should also be given in languages used in the regions relevant to the taxa diagnosed.
As for understanding and memorising the Code, the former is not so difficult and the latter is not necessary, as the Code is arranged into chapters on topics, and within articles there are references to other relevant articles elsewhere in the Code. I check the Code whenever I am uncertain about an issue, which is more reliable than trusting my memory.

Adam.
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Re: Papilio bjorkae (Pavulaan, 2024) Tiger Swallowtail

Post by Chuck »

8.1.1. it must be issued for the purpose of providing a public and permanent scientific record,
8.1.2. it must be obtainable, when first issued, free of charge or by purchase, and
Thanks for all that info Adam.

So! Lightbulb moment- that's why articles are available for a month or so, before they disappear behind a paywall.

I wonder- why doesn't it say "permanent public...record"? Authors don't get paid for new descriptions, right? So why wouldn't they make the papers available forever? I suppose some entity has to host the publication, and in most cases authors don't have the ability or desire. It is a shame though that so many papers are unavailable to the unwashed masses.
There are (even today) cases where one person is author, editor, reviewer and publisher of his own journal in order to publish his own papers without 'interference'. I don't want to be more specific (naming names), but I assume this happens across Zoology, not just in Lepidoptera
I think that has been pretty well argued, and with valid reasons. It may not be optimal, but it may be the only way to get the job done.

Lepidoptery has had some pretty good public (published) spats lately. This is NOTHING compared to paleontology and Egyptology, both of which incur regular battles by spiteful foes who seek to torpedo others' works, while at the same time the ecosystems of study themselves fight change. There are no longer any household names in entomology as there are in paleontology and Egyptology, so the battle for prestige in entomology isn't nearly as important.

Contrast all this with the aquarium fish world- a collector's (often, breeder's) collective with a fanaticism rivaled only, perhaps, by the level of beetle breeding in Japan. These aquarium crazies have no qualms about paying thousands of dollars to penetrate the deepest jungles to find new taxa of fish, so much so that the Ichthyologists can't keep up. Much as we have our "Mid Summer Tiger", the fish world is 100 times this, with so many taxa existing sans Latin name, instead given monikers often based on location.

It's somewhat odd that it's very common in Lepidoptery that collectors are perfectly satisfied with having a representative specimen, not even all the ssp.- let alone not wanting series of specimens of one clade from EVERYWHERE. Total opposite of the fish fanatics.

Turning back to new taxon descriptions, the citizen fish nuts really don't give a hoot if it's professionally described. They have the species, they're breeding it, they know ALL about it, while the scientists are running around arguing about nomenclature and peer review. The amateurs generally see the professionals as immaterial. Published about some new taxon? Yeah, they did it on FB and called it "Rio Negro 2" and that's good enough. To them, it's more important to (I suppose, brag) about the new species than mess around with Old Skool publications.
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Re: Papilio bjorkae (Pavulaan, 2024) Tiger Swallowtail

Post by Chuck »

Back on the topic of bjorkae:

Pavulaan says that Rhode Island has two phenotypes that fly in spring: bjorkae which is univoltine, and glaucus Spring Form which makes the summer form.

I have a local specimen that looks virtually identical to the glaucus Spring Form Pavulaan depicts in Figure 15. So does that mean it's glaucus Spring Form?

But wait, Hagen & Lederhouse (1985) said both Tiger flights in NY above the 41st parallel are univoltine. I'm above the 43rd parallel. So that would rule out a spring form of P glaucus, right?

So forgetting the bivoltine part, our Spring Form- which looks like Pavulaan's Fig 15 glaucus- has sufficient morphology that it is not readily discernable from MST; I'm guessing that Pavulaan's glaucus Spring Form isn't either. Of course, MST doesn't fly in spring, so even if they look similar, they're two different flights.

Pavulaan's bjorkae images look like our very earliest Tigers. That's right- it seems we have three somethings here, and by "here" I mean in my county. I've not been able to locate canadensis here yet though, that's 90-120 minute drive.
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Re: Papilio bjorkae (Pavulaan, 2024) Tiger Swallowtail

Post by harrypav »

Some clarification here, in response to comments here and elsewhere:

1) Pterourus bjorkae is not a “spring form” of the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. It is an introgressed-hybrid taxon that flies in the spring, along WITH P. glaucus and what I initially perceived as P. canadensis in Rhode Island. It is not a spring form, as there is no summer form. ‘Kevinkk’: yes, you misunderstand.

2) As for canadensis, I refer to this in my paper as “near-canadensis” on advice of my reviewer who suggested that canadensis likely does not fly in southern New England (except for NW Connecticut and far western Massachusetts). Whether the small, early spring taxon in Rhode Island is actually canadensis, or yet another taxon, remains to be seen.

3) I appreciate Chuck DeRoller’s understanding of the issues at hand, also Adam Cotton.

4) I have reared all three taxa in Rhode Island: glaucus, bjorkae and near-candensis. They are different. In particular, I have reared glaucus almost continuously, on an annual basis since 1983 and the Rhode Island spring flight produces the summer flight. Both spring and summer forms are perfect matches for those that I have reared over many years elsewhere. Genome research won’t provide any earth-breaking finds.

5) If any doubters were to actually read my paper, P. glaucus has a black form. That black form is only found along the immediate southern New England coast. The black form does NOT occur in bjorkae or canadensis.

6) Mark Schenk, former owner of the Newport (R.I.) Butterfly Zoo, once informed me that he reared many glaucus from a single black female of the spring flight, thus producing many black females of the summer brood. It was a one-time finding.

7) Chuck brings up an interesting point. There may yet be MORE cryptic taxa within the “Tiger Swallowtail Complex”. The late Alex Grkovich, who collected a considerable number of P. bjorkae in Massachusetts, long knew this was a unique taxon, and he often referred to it as a subspecies of P. appalachiensis. However, Alex was quite convinced that there were additional cryptic species in New England. I won’t go into detail but Chuck may be on to something.

8) Chuck: try looking at the bivoltine populations of glaucus up on the Allegheny Plateau of West Virginia, western Maryland and some parts of western Pennsylvania. They are flying where, according to Mark Scriber’s team, it is too cold for glaucus to exist. I can share observations related to this.

9) ‘Eurytides’ stated: “I am also hesitant to take Harry’s word here without genetic data. It’s 2024, and despite the ICZN, I personally don’t think you can claim a new species without genetic data.” Well, that’s not how science has been working. There are no prerequisites for genetic data to describe any biological entity. As a matter of fact, when you look at 99% of described species, those were done before DNA analysis even started. It’s only been the past few decades that genomics has really taken off. And, so, if I describe a new species before any genomic work has been done, that does not disqualify the description of a new organism. We can’t have it both ways, as so many people criticize Nick Grishin’s genome team for naming and describing new taxa from DNA analysis, before we even know anything of their life history. Example: when Hermeuptychia intricata was described, it wasn’t until months later, that Andy Warren published a paper on how to tell the difference from H. sosybius.

10) ‘Trehopr1’ stated: “why are these "scientific" papers produced without adequate peer review?” If this is in reference to The Taxonomic Report, for how many years to I have to tell folks that TTR is PEER REVIEWED. There are a number of issues here. (1) TTR employs a flexible peer review process. As editor, I can assign a reviewer, or the author is at liberty to select a reviewer who will work with them to produce a top notch paper. Take a look at any of the TTR papers, and you’ll see reviewers listed. (2) TTR reviewers are expected to be expert in the topic at hand. (3) Putting one’s paper into the hands of an anonymous reviewer who knows little or nothing of the topic at hand, is not productive and can lead to excessive delays. Look at some past issues of JRL that took YEARS to publish papers. Also, some TTR papers, especially those by Nick Grishin’s team, have an entire acknowledgement devoted to listing all the players who reviewed or provided help.

11) Yes, TTR is a private journal of sorts. It is actually the journal of what is left of The International Lepidoptera Survey after its founder, Ron Gatrelle passed away. I have been struggling to keep TILS and TTR afloat. However, again, there is no requisite for anything to be published in the “big boy” vanity journals. Small journals such as TTR and also James Scott’s ‘Papilio – New Series” were founded precisely to remove avocational and professional research from the grasp of the “big boy” journals, and also to expedite publication. Otakar Kudrna once wrote to me and explained how, in Turkey, a small elite of entomologists controlled research, being unreasonably critical, thus the need to often look for other outlets. Case in point - many years back, I published a paper in the JLS on Rhode Island Butterflies (not Skippers). A year later, I mailed in another paper on R.I. Skippers. Well, the new editor apparently did not even read my paper and rejected it outright the day he received it, suggesting I find another journal. I did, and Opler made sure it was published in Xerces.

12) Thanks, Chuck. Yes, we are all entomologists, especially when we spend a lifetime of fieldwork and study, then write, though some may only be interested in the hobby aspects of collecting. So, I prefer not to associate as a mere “collector”.

13) DNA work is not the final word! It does not work for groups such as the Celastrina and many of the western Blues. If we simply use DNA work to recognize species, then all eastern Celastrina are ONE species! Even black Celastrina nigra has the same DNA as C. ladon, neglecta, others. So we rely on good old fashioned fieldwork to distinguish species. Had David Wright and myself not described Celastrina idella and C. serotina when we did, we still to this day would not recognize them as species.

14) Chuck hit a home run with this comment: “In some focus fields, I have no peers. I am the authority. So who's to review the subject material?” David Wright reviewed my P. bjorkae paper. I can confidently say that Dave and I are experts on the Tiger Swallowtail group. Yes, there are others, but think here: Often the institutionally-affiliated experts focus solely on their OWN research, and in my experience, some won’t even respond to email inquiries. Ever hear of “conflict of interest”? If I were to disclose my research to others, it would be a snap to throw together a paper using my research, and claiming it for oneself. So we avocational lepidopterists are left to our own devices. We don’t have unlimited free access to literature, unlimited time, finances and resources to travel far and wide to conduct collaborative research. I depended heavily on my own fieldwork and rearing, but also on all the published studies which I cited in my paper. Those are, in a way, PRE-review.
That’s enough rambling for now.

HP (yes, a Bjork fan)
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Re: Papilio bjorkae (Pavulaan, 2024) Tiger Swallowtail

Post by adamcotton »

Harry,

Welcome to Insectnet, and thank you very much for the important post above.

Just to dispel any misunderstandings by anyone, I was not referring to TTR when I stated
There are (even today) cases where one person is author, editor, reviewer and publisher of his own journal in order to publish his own papers without 'interference'.
this was actually in reference to at least one Japanese who publishes only his own papers in his journal.

Adam.
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Re: Papilio bjorkae (Pavulaan, 2024) Tiger Swallowtail

Post by Chuck »

Harry, thanks for joining. I hope you stick around and share your insights. We really could use more participation from experts in the field.

When I said that in some cases I am THE authority, this does not apply to entomology. I greatly enjoy the opportunity to learn from the luminaries like Adam on P machaon etc. as I'm constantly astonished. Others like Tom and his adventures in Africa reveal so much. And the many other members here who share their observations and expertise on their niche- butterflies of Colorado, Texas, Az, and the mad Coleopterists.

As far as I'm concerned, Wang and Schmidt had enough on the Mid Summer Tiger to describe it back in 2017. What did I bring to the table? Some insights into range and behavior, and a collection of specimens- none of which is needed to describe the taxon. When I started on this project I was finishing two decades of study of South Pacific Leps, and knew nothing of the Tigers in my back yard.

Harry should you care, I've documented my journey on this MST project; the first post has a link to the 20 pages on the archived forum, so there are now 30 pages of my often boring, often wrong, ramblings. viewtopic.php?t=289

Yesterday I pulled out my Drawer From Hell, labeled "canadensis". I was joyful to see some "pure canadensis" from Alaska and Thunder Bay; but the rest are "near canadensis"; I determined that one is rutulus or a hybrid with, and looked at the variation in the "near canadensis" (note my "near canadensis" is not referring, necessarily, to Harry Pavulaan's "near canadensis") and I put the drawer back. I am afraid to start tackling that now.

It's stupifying how little we know about Tiger Swallowtails. One of our local spring flights I've tentatively identified as bjorkae. I was discussing our other spring flight with the pros yesterday, and nothing adds up; if I say they are glaucus then it fails on one aspect of the taxon; if I say it's MST the same thing. What exactly are the tiny spring fliers in the mountains of VA and WV that Dr Hyatt forwarded? Why is a glaucus specimen from the KY foothills of the Appalachians showing as an outlier with COI? What's the deal with those distinctive populations of glaucus in TX and Indiana? I have no idea, but I suspect the complexities of the eastern Tiger Swallowtails exceed our current understanding of how taxonomy works.
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Re: Papilio bjorkae (Pavulaan, 2024) Tiger Swallowtail

Post by adamcotton »

Chuck wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2024 12:15 pm Yesterday I pulled out my Drawer From Hell, labeled "canadensis". I was joyful to see some "pure canadensis" from Alaska and Thunder Bay; but the rest are "near canadensis"
I think it is worth pointing out that the type of Papilio canadensis came from Newfoundland, so "pure canadensis" comes from there. Whether or not Alaskan specimens are the same is another issue entirely.

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Re: Papilio bjorkae (Pavulaan, 2024) Tiger Swallowtail

Post by Chuck »

adamcotton wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2024 12:53 pm
I think it is worth pointing out that the type of Papilio canadensis came from Newfoundland, so "pure canadensis" comes from there. Whether or not Alaskan specimens are the same is another issue entirely.

Adam.
Ah, let's go with that.

There is no argument that whatever that Newfoundland type specimen is, it is canadensis. It is THE canadensis.

Now, hypothetically, if that type specimen turned out to be a hybrid, not a unique taxon, not a recombinant hybrid, then canadensis would cease to exist, right? And that name then could be applied to, for example, "real canadensis" from Thunder Bay, right? I presume this has happened in other cases.

Now, I'm trying to determine how I'd figure out if my local specimens really are bjorkae. Nuclear testing (I should say "nuclear DNA testing") might reveal something but we've already discussed the challenges to having that completed.

The other spring flight would be easy enough to figure out if it's uni or bivoltine, except I won't be able to raise them for a year to find out. COI testing would be easy enough, but my COI lab hasn't responded to my inquiry.
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Re: Papilio bjorkae (Pavulaan, 2024) Tiger Swallowtail

Post by eurytides »

Harry, welcome, and thanks for chipping in the useful info. Good to know you have peer review. Regarding my comment on DNA analysis, I realize it's not required by the Code, or anyone, really. And I agree it shouldn't be all that we rely on. Relying on any one single tool is bound to lead us astray at some point. At the same time, there have been cases where relying on morphology alone isn't enough and DNA has then revealed cryptic species to us. It's an imperfect tool as I stated earlier in this thread, but I do advocate for its use as one tool of many in our armamentarium when it comes to taxonomy. Of course, it is also true that it's not feasible for everyone to do DNA on everything all the time. Chuck and I talked about this just the other day actually over private email. It's just not practical and really limits amateur entomologists.

My main concern is that the tiger swallowtails are so complex that I'm not sure relying on morphology and flight times alone are enough to sort out everything. We've done genetic work on canadensis, glaucus, and MST, and even with that data, it's still confusing exactly what's going on. If you were describing something that was clearly every different from everything else, yeah you probably wouldn't need DNA or much of anything other than saying butterfly X has trait A and nothing else does. But the tigers are a whole different ball of wax. Morphologically, there's canadensis, glaucus, and everything in between, and I mean everything. Chuck has many specimens where if we look at them without capture date and location, we basically are like, okay we have no idea what this is. You could indeed be on to something with bjorkae. Our certainty will increase as time passes and we amass more data. At the moment, I'm not even sure if your bjorkae is the same as what we're seeing in the spring where Chuck lives.
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Re: Papilio bjorkae (Pavulaan, 2024) Tiger Swallowtail

Post by adamcotton »

Chuck wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2024 1:46 pm Now, hypothetically, if that type specimen turned out to be a hybrid, not a unique taxon, not a recombinant hybrid, then canadensis would cease to exist, right? And that name then could be applied to, for example, "real canadensis" from Thunder Bay, right? I presume this has happened in other cases.
No, even if the type specimen were a hybrid (it is clearly not artificially produced) the specimen would still be the name bearing type of Papilio canadensis.

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Re: Papilio bjorkae (Pavulaan, 2024) Tiger Swallowtail

Post by Chuck »

I'm trying to dissect Mr. Pavulaan's paper now. Perhaps he can step in and help. Really, the below isn't to critique his publication, I'm assembling notes so I can make sense of his observations and my observations.

the presence of small, potential canadensis-like adults sympatric with the larger bjorkae Are "near-canadensis" and "canadensis-like" referencing the same butterflies?

[about bjorkae] Obligate univoltine, corroborated by Hagen & Lederhouse (1985) for New York. This then presumes that Hagen's "early flight" is the same taxon as bjorkae. As I'd mentioned in the Tiger Swallowtails of the Finger Lakes thread, I've been unable to confirm what their Ithaca-area "early flight" is; remember, at the time, canadensis was not yet described, so it could have been canadensis (early flight) and glaucus (late flight); however, I went to Ithaca and all over the area and I could not find canadensis. Further, I cannot locate the specimens that Hagen & Lederhouse collected. At this point a cursory review of my regional specimens do not match bjorkae, not using the generally obvious & easy HW black abdominal line. Now, our two spring polymorphs in my area may not match those in Ithaca either. But in all, I'm not sold that H&L Ithaca taxon is the same as bjorkae.

The largest of the three spring-flying Tiger Swallowtails. But I'm counting four in the paper: canadensis, near-canadensis, spring glaucus, and bjorkae. So I'm confused; is "near canadensis" and "canadensis-like" the same as bjorkae?

In any event, bjorkae being "the largest" narrows things down and eliminates canadensis and mostly-canadensis hybrids. In my area, the largest spring flier is morphologically closer to the pictured Spring glaucus (Fig. 15) though I'll have to spend more time looking at mine, and other bjorkae as images become available. Besides which, if we have Spring Form glaucus, where's the summer form / flight?

Then I remembered...my pre-MST collection of local Tigers...all but one were caught in June. This flight/ population in June used to be quite common, but no longer is. A quick look at the underside of one specimen and it does look very bjorkae, and it is the right size. Needs further investigation.

Fig. 25 and 27 of bjorkae Ah...a thin black HW abdominal line. So bjorkae doesn't always have a wide stripe here. That opens the door a bit.
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Re: Papilio bjorkae (Pavulaan, 2024) Tiger Swallowtail

Post by harrypav »

Chuck:

My reference to "near-canadensis" in my paper was to refer to the taxon that I personally considered canadensis in Rhode Island. But my reviewer suggested otherwise.

My reference to "canadensis-like" simply referred to any glaucus, bjorkae or MST as looking like canadensis.

Hope that clears that one up.

Harry
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Re: Papilio bjorkae (Pavulaan, 2024) Tiger Swallowtail

Post by harrypav »

Chuck:

Oops, another one. You wrote: "I'm counting four in the paper: canadensis, near-canadensis, spring glaucus, and bjorkae." Sorry for any confusion. The canadensis entry is the same thing as "near-canadensis". I would have called it P. canadensis in R.I. but there is some doubt. It may be an isolate. Note my comment on page 13:

"A study by Scriber et al. (2002) indicated that summer maximum temperatures in the range of 30-36℃ (86-97℉) over a period of four days were lethal to diapausing pupae of canadensis. Data from the Rhode Island Dept. of Environmental Management (accessed online, 2023) stated that interior portions of Rhode Island experienced an average of 8-10 days of high temperatures of 36℃ (97℉) annually, with some summers experiencing as many as 20 or more such warm days. Scriber et al. (2002) concluded: “Natural temperature-induced stress on diapausing pupae prevents canadensis from extending range south.” Interestingly, along the immediate coast, temperatures rarely ever exceed 90℉, due to the moderating effect of the ocean. This might account for records of canadensis-like specimens near the Rhode Island coast."

So my suggestion here is that IF any canadensis females made it (strayed) down to the southern New England coast, high summer temps do not reach the threshold that would kill her offspring pupae when summer arrives. On the other hand, inland, away from the cooling effect of the ocean during the summer months, it gets too hot in interior R.I. during summer and any canadensis pupae would die from heat stress. The fact that I managed a few specimens in southern R.I. only, might support this idea that those could be isolates. OR, they could be a canadensis segregate, even if only temporarily. I sent a pair to Nick Grishin for genomic analysis (note missing abdomens in figs. 18-21.

You and your team are doing great work on the MST. Hopefully, you can also analyze that high-elevation population in the central Appalachian Highlands that should NOT be there according to Scriber's team. If your team can get their hands on some specimens from Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine, you can see if Alex Grkovich was correct in suggesting there are additional species in that region. Bjorkae might not be the same taxon as that in central New York or northern Pennsylvania, though I think it is. David Wright can help with Pennsylvania observations.

Harry

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Re: Papilio bjorkae (Pavulaan, 2024) Tiger Swallowtail

Post by Chuck »

Thanks for the clarifications Harry.

I think we don't recognize the impact of microclimates in the US NE. We all know about islanding on the plateaus out west, and of course the various climates that mountain altitudes bring.

But just look around Lake Ontario- Toronto to the NW gets little snow but very cold; Buffalo to SW gets (reportedly) tons of snow, but not as cold as Toronto; Kingston in the NE gets real cold but not a lot of snow; Oswego/ Watertown in SE isn't as cold as Kingston but makes Buffalo snow look like child's play (on that, last year's snowstorm 40 people died in Buffalo; nobody died in Watertown. Stop blaming weather.) I'm mid-way along the lake, and south; we get more snow than Buffalo (and nobody dies) but in winter we run a good 8C warmer than Watertown. Toronto and Kingston warm up faster in spring- usually 2 weeks ahead of us- because the prevailing NW wind goes across the cold lake into NY.

Meanwhile, right where I am- Finger Lakes- we have a series of N-S lakes 25-40 miles long. The lakes are deep in between high hills. So the west shores warm later in the day because they're in the shade, and then bake in the setting sun. In both winter and summer the daily ground-level temperature may swing 50F. The plants on these shores then have to survive winter temps of -20C with high winds and then summer ground temps of 50C in brilliant sunlight that dries the soil. This limits what can grow, so limits the insects that can survive.

Butterfly field work in this area isn't like the tropics, where so many taxa are just fluttering about, everywhere. Here you have to target very specific micro-ecosystems to find particular butterflies. I could sit all day in one spot and not see a Tiger Swallowtail, but 500m away there's dozens of them. And, of these various Tiger polymorphs that Harry Pavulaan discussed, I'm still trying to figure out which ones occur where here, which might just be dwarf individuals, etc.

But now it's late Fall. We're going to Boston for a long weekend. Last night I dreamt that we were walking through Boston North End and a Tiger flew between me and my wife. "I have to bring my net!" (not "should have"). Then another flew in front of her. "I have to bring my net!" again. I awoke, and assured myself I would bring my net. When I awoke this morning I realized no, I do not need to bring my net. Field work is finished.
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Re: Papilio bjorkae (Pavulaan, 2024) Tiger Swallowtail

Post by jhyatt »

Chuck wrote: Thu Oct 31, 2024 1:53 pm When I awoke this morning I realized no, I do not need to bring my net. Field work is finished.
Not quite for me! I'm still seeing buckeyes, cloudless sulphurs, the occasional gulf frit, and, a few days ago, a dark Papilio (didn't get good enough a look to identify it - probably philenor, from the way it flew). Last night I ran moth light traps on a trail in nearby VA woods. Just retrieved them, and had a modest but nice catch of LBM's to sort and spread this afternoon. And Sunday we're off to the the GA coast, where a fair number of butterflies and moths will still be flying. But yes, it will all come to the season's end before too long.

Sigh,
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Re: Papilio bjorkae (Pavulaan, 2024) Tiger Swallowtail

Post by adamcotton »

The name bjorkae Pavulaan, 2024 finally became a validly published available name according to the ICZN Code on 2 November 2024 when Pavulaan published an addendum (available here: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14031815) which just about satisfied article 10.1 (all Code provisions complied with).

The name was unavailable from the original paper because it did not comply with article 16.4.2 (no stated location of the holotype), and although the text technically does not satisfy article 16.1
Every new name published after 1999, including new replacement names (nomina nova), must be explicitly indicated as intentionally new.
the addendum subject mentions the word 'new', which can be interpreted as sufficient to satisfy this requirement.

An example of a failed attempt to satisfy these articles is all but one of the new names published in Ek-Amnuay, P. [2007]. Butterflies of Thailand. In this publication Ek-Amnuay did not even designate holotypes for his new taxa; except for one Hesperiid, which had already previously been described and thus is a junior synonym. In the second edition, published in 2012, he tried to solve the problem by designating holotypes alongside the descriptions but did not state the names were new from 2012, thus not complying with article 16.1. There were no statements of 'ssp. nov.' or similar, and instead dated the names from the first edition.

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Re: Papilio bjorkae (Pavulaan, 2024) Tiger Swallowtail

Post by bobw »

Why use a blue label for the paratype (allotype in this case)? Paratype labels are supposed to be yellow, blue labels are for syntypes. This could make things very confused!
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Re: Papilio bjorkae (Pavulaan, 2024) Tiger Swallowtail

Post by adamcotton »

Of course the colour of labels is by convention, not even recommended under the ICZN Code, and most people use red labels for paratypes despite that technically being the colour for holotype labels. I suppose the reason is that red stands out more clearly than yellow.

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Re: Papilio bjorkae (Pavulaan, 2024) Tiger Swallowtail

Post by bobw »

Yes, of course there is nothing in The Code about label colours, but the convention is red for holotypes, dark blue for lectotypes, pale blue for syntypes and yellow for paratypes and paralectotypes; if people start using blue for paratypes it will only cause confusion. I don't have a problem with people using red for all types as long as the type category is clearly stated, this has been done many times, and how many different coloured sheets of paper do people want lying around?
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