Today's head-banger: the official NYS butterfly

[Chuck]

The official NY butterfly is the Red Spot Purple. See image below.

And that's not the only screw-up.

[Chuck]

and if that's not enough, "How to Raise a Monarch" cover photo in Finger Lakes Magazine https://www.lifeinthefingerlakes.com/ho ... a-monarch/

[Paul K]

I didn’t realize that to catch Morhpo I wouldn’t need to travel at least to Central America, it was just enough to cross the border to the south

[adamcotton]

They won't let you catch the "Official NY State Butterfly" anyway, so don't bother crossing the border to look for it.

Adam.

[kevinkk]

They won't let you catch the "Official NY State Butterfly" anyway, so don't bother crossing the border to look for it.

Adam.

A good lawyer might be able to get you out of that one.

[eurytides]

This is hilariously sad.

[adamcotton]

The official NY butterfly is the Red Spot Purple. See image below.

And that's not the only screw-up.

Indeed, the "Eastern Tiger Swallowtail" is P. multicaudata, maybe other photos are incorrect too.

You didn't say where this information came from, maybe it's a joke? If not, sad.

Adam.

[Chuck]

The official NY butterfly is the Red Spot Purple. See image below.

And that's not the only screw-up.

Indeed, the "Eastern Tiger Swallowtail" is P. multicaudata, maybe other photos are incorrect too.

You didn't say where this information came from, maybe it's a joke? If not, sad.

Adam.

https://www.butterflyidentification.com ... ork-NY.jpg


The Clouded Sulphur image is wrong, as is the Orange Sulphur image; neither shown occur in NY. The metalmark probably does occur in the very SE corner of NY, but iNaturalist has no record for it. The Checkered White does occur in SE NY, but records are very few. Notably absent are the Monarch and Black Swallowtail, which are far more common. You have to wonder about the type of people who put these things together.

[Chuck]

This is hilariously sad.

You could do one for Ontario Canada, just stick whatever images on it, and sell the posters. Bird people and weekend naturalists will never know.

[kevinkk]

I don't think it's a joke at all, some staffer was given an assignment and there you go- there are A LOT of people walking around who don't know a
thing about anything, I watch a news channel that often does "person on the street" interviews and asks basic questions, really basic grade school
stuff, and what is scary, is most people don't know anything at all, it's a wonder some of them can make it through the day. Just tattoo "breathe"
under your eyelids, and you'll be fine.

[Chuck]

I wonder how much is "stupid" and how much is "lazy".

The magazine that had the article about raising monarchs- with a viceroy for the cover photo- routinely screws up Leps. I've written to them several times, offering to proof their articles written by well-wishing bird people, but they are disinterested. Their target market is B&Bs, wine tours, and "artisans" they don't really care about Leps. That's not "stupid" it's "lazy".

I once gave a project to our graphic artist to generate a likeness of the flag of Fiji. She did (sort of), leaving off the crest. I said it had to have the crest, to which she b*ched and complained about how hard it would be to do; never mind that the Fijian audience would quickly note the mangled flag. Duh. That's lazy, with ignorant thrown in.

Remember, that website probably has similar pages for other states...I wonder how many of those are also screwed up.

[alandmor]

The Butterfly Identification website has a similar graphic for each state and the error(s) are repeated multiple times. It may be helpful if someone with expertise brings this to their attention!

https://www.butterflyidentification.com ... lies-in-us

[adamcotton]

Maybe someone should tell them to change their URL to "butterflymisidentification.com".

Adam.

[Yorky]

This is the sad state of affairs we find ourselves with nowadays I'm afraid. Long gone are the days when those who proffess to be experts ,most of who were avid collectors, go anywhere near such organisations. Here in the UK all of our conservation bodies and their local counterparts are staffed by straight out of university, politically correct social justice warriors who's knowledge is straight from books as they've only spent an hour in the field at most, the knowledge of those that they preach to (who think they're wonderful) is akin to the average 4 year old as far as natural history is concerned so even if they made such glaring errors their target audience wouldn't even notice. They are a bit of a joke really or they would be if they didn't wield so much power.

Here in my little corner of Northern England I made a startling discovery of a nationally rare and protected species of butterfly, the powers that be would immediately cordon off the area and mismanage the habitat until it became extinct as they have in dozens of sites in England, the only answer is to simply not tell them and completely refuse to cooperate with them on any level.

[chrisw]

The "Hackberry Emperor" is wrong as well. It is staggering how bad that poster is.