JVCalhoun wrote: Mon Feb 17, 2025 2:02 pm
In this case, one could designate the specimen in Clerck's illustration of glaucus as the lectotype, arguing that it is likely a syntype.
Indeed, designating the specimen in Clerck's illustration as lectotype of P. glaucus is a possibility. However, Clerck's illustration, on plate 24, was only published in 1764, 6 years after Linnaeus published the name, and in order to be regarded as a syntype the specimen in the Clerck illustration would have to be assumed as present in the M.L.U. collection before 1758. Clerck's illustrations were made from the collection of Drottning (= Queen) Louisa Ulrica which is the same as the 'M.L.U.' cited by Linnaeus in 1758, so that does at least link the Clerck specimen to Linnaeus' description on the basis of housing.
Adam is correct. Article 75.3.5 of the Code states, in part, that the neotype must be “consistent with what is known of the former name-bearing type from the original description and from other sources.” In addition, it must have originated “as nearly as practicable from the original type locality…” (Art. 75.3.6). Neotypes are designated only when it is necessary to define a nominal taxon objectively, such as to fix the identities of closely related taxa.
Neotype specimens for names proposed many years ago can be of more recent origin. For example, Papilio hyllus (now recognized as Tharsalea hyllus) was described and figure by Cramer in 1775 (top image, below), but I was unable to locate any extant syntypes. I designated a neotype using a specimen that was collected in 1900 (bottom image, below). The type locality was reported by Cramer to be “Smirna” or “Smirne,” implying Smyrna (now Ismir) in western Turkey, which is obviously incorrect. The specimen I chose was from Brooklyn, New York, which is the area where the syntype(s) likely originated based on available evidence.
This could work for glaucus, as neither canadensis nor solstitius are known to have dark forms (though appalachiensis rarely does).
objective of any potential neotype designation would be to choose specimens that are definitely the same as currently recognised as P. glaucus
Clark and Clark reported several different flights in the DC area, including on that could have been solstitius, and another small form flight with a dark female. Given that the illustration shows a dark female, it’s not solstitius. But we know ranges have changed, so are we certain that the collected specimen from which the illustration is made is truly glaucus? Was there another polymorph in the DC area that is now, like so many others, extinct? Without the type specimen it cannot be disproven.
I do note that the illustrated specimen with that wash of yellow/ brown underside and yellow FW spots is far more common in Philly and the hills of KY now.
Chuck wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 12:58 am
I do note that the illustrated specimen with that wash of yellow/ brown underside and yellow FW spots is far more common in Philly and the hills of KY now.
It must be kept in mind that old, hand-colored engravings (like those of Clerck) are not photographs. They can differ quite a bit between copies, and they often exaggerate features depending on the degree of artistic license applied during the coloring process. This is a bigger problem when plates were colored by multiple colorists during the production of these old books. A good example is the ventral figure of Oreas helicta (=Neonympha areolatus) from plate 95 of Hübner (1806-[1838]). The images below, from my 2018 paper on this taxon, show how much variation there is between copies.
Even though Clerck probably colored his own plates, I wouldn't put too much weight in the extent of yellow overscaling on the ventral hindwings of the glaucus figures, as he may have overemphasized this feature. Although my dark females from Ohio have varying amounts of this overscaling, it's not nearly as vivid as shown in Clerck's illustration. As for the yellow forewing discal scaling (which is mentioned in Linnaeus' original description of glaucus), it is irregularly present among the dark females I have from Ohio, as well as ssp. maynardi from Florida.
Chuck wrote: Mon Feb 17, 2025 8:24 pm
BTW there is a Smyrna NY, and Jamaica N.Y. is now part of queens.
Regarding the reference to "Smyrna" in Cramer's description of P. hyllus, at least eight municipalities are named Smyrna in the United States, but they were either founded during the nineteenth century (including Smyrna, NY, which was founded in 1808), and/or are located outside the range of this species. Cramer placed a number of species in "Smyrna," most of which are not North American. It is well established that many of Cramer’s localities are erroneous.
Locality labels were rarely affixed to specimens during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Cabinet labels (pinned at the head or foot of a series of specimens) were used for identification purposes, but locality data were often recorded in separate catalogs or log books. If the specimens were later sold or exchanged, locality information was frequently lost or imprecisely conveyed. The illustrated type specimen of Papilio hyllus likely passed through the hands of at least four people during its existence, thus its type locality cannot be trusted. After tracing the likely provenance of the specimen, I concluded that it was collected during the 1760s in the vicinity of Brooklyn, Long Island, NY. Hence my selection of a neotype specimen from that locality.
Another excellent example of the artistic license applied to old, hand-colored illustrations is the amount of variation in Plate 23 of Drury (1773) (below). The original drawing by Moses Harris is at upper left (Fig. 9). This plate accompanied the original description of Papilio rhipheus (=Chrysiridia rhipheus) when this moth was thought to be a butterfly. The ventral figure was probably based on a sketch of a worn specimen which lacked the lower portions of its hindwings. The inaccurate dorsal figure may have been based on a written description, or it was simply extrapolated from the ventral sketch.
The coloration of the dorsal hindwings of the copy shown in Fig. 12 really deviates from the others, and was clearly based on the ventral coloration. Strangely enough, that copy of the plate was possibly colored by the original artist, Moses Harris, who likely colored the copy in Fig. 10. There is very little consistency between copies. https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... _1770-1782
Well I'm back on my computer, instead of reading the publication and this thread on my tiny phone.
I have to say, I started with a "keep it simple" Jshuey-style paper. That turned out to be a dozen pages. Aside from my observations, a lot of it was reiterating, in one place, past work; researchers such as Wang, Schmidt, and Scriber had made it abundantly clear that MST was a unique taxon, without formally naming it.
Once my draft was "perfect" I sent it to member Eurytides to add his data gleaned from raising larvae. And, he reviewed it- and slaughtered my work- six times. It was at times defeating. That all took a good six months.
At that point, we realized that Chris Schmidt, who had published on MST, had a ton of data. And, being a professional, he could edit the paper to be acceptable. So we brought him on, which turned out to be a great decision because what he brought- in content and in style- resulted in a far better, and far more comprehensive, publication.
As we three then looked at what we had, what was missing was updated genetic analysis. So Julian Dupuis joined us, and provided great insights (some of which I am still yet to understand) that addressed the taxonomic status with "new technology." Even then, his hands were tied because there actually are very few barcode records of MST, and worse some are COI 3' and some are COI 5' which don't map to each other. It's like describing a person by having a view of their left side, and the back of their head.
From the date we invited Chris to submission to ZooKeys for publication was almost another year. Ouch. So elapsed time then was some 16 months.
At "the last minute" ZooKeys reviewer Dr. Felix Sperling requested two significant changes/ flagged issues:
1. The proposed name- Papilio haudenosaunee (Haudenosaunee is what most know better as the Iroquois) was possibly considered taking of indigenous naming / property. Though the name had been suggested by a local American native, when asked if the Haudenosaunee would bless the name, the response was that it was impossible, there were too many factions to agree. So the name was changed to solstitius.
2. That we address the recently introduced Papilio bjorkae (Pavulaan, 2024). Chris drafted an analysis, which took more time.
I also should note that many of my charts- such as quantity observed over time- were eliminated because they were representative of the Finger Lakes region, not the entire range. This all impressed on me that there's a lot of data that gets stripped out of publications. My data and charts and such though do appear in the annual reports submitted to NYS, and will be in my full notes once compiled.
In working with a team, inevitably there are differences of opinion and approach. And, sometimes we have to pick our battles. Case in point, in the paper we do treat Spring Form in NY as the spring form of glaucus; it has been convention for a century so we stuck with it. That said, I believe that the regional Spring Form is in fact not glaucus. Further, our paper states that glaucus does not occur in Finger Lakes, so the astute reader will realize we are inconsistent. But if we had even hinted that Spring Form may not be glaucus it would open the door for one of the VIP reviewers to insist we address that, which would be another five years- so I particularly was dead set against addressing Spring Form and didn't question how it was addressed.
I am humbled by the results of the paper. I thought I did a damned great job in my draft. The end result, much of it written and edited by Chris Schmidt, is a magnitude better.
There's still much to do; we still don't know the full range of MST, or canadensis, or glaucus, or Appy. We have so few specimens in the genetic databases, and little understanding of hybridization. Then we have Pavulaan's bjorkae paper that presents possible new taxa (which conveniently maps to my observations) all of which needs to be explored, analyzed, and published. Some thing there's nothing left to discover; I'd argue that there's plenty to discover, right in our back yard, concerning common and showy butterflies.
eurytides wrote: Tue Feb 25, 2025 11:21 pm
Sorry Chuck, I didn’t think I “slaughtered” the manuscript lol. I actually thought you happy with the edits.
Slightly off topic, but your new place in FL, are you within the range of Callosamia securifera? Would be amazing to raise that species.
Your critique was, of course, invaluable. I was just shocked at how much critique there was of my "perfect" draft. LOL. It was, also of course, necessary and why we have others look at our work. Not even to mention the spectacular insights you had of the larval stages.
Oddly enough, where we're moving in FL is for some reason a dead zone. C securifera, and in fact P glaucus, occur an hour north, and hour south, and hour east...but not there. Generally it looks like a foodplant issue for most species absent from the vicinity, though I have yet to ascertain why the foodplants aren't there; I know so little about the micro-ecosystems.
You know what they say, plant it and they will come. There have been countless times where I thought an area was devoid of some species, but upon searching the food plants, I find larvae or ova. Are you in maynardi territory by any chance??
eurytides wrote: Wed Feb 26, 2025 6:19 pm
You know what they say, plant it and they will come. There have been countless times where I thought an area was devoid of some species, but upon searching the food plants, I find larvae or ova. Are you in maynardi territory by any chance??
Nope. The two races of maynardi are north, and south. Hybrid zone is east. But oddly there aren't any in Ft Myers area (because of food plant.) Sucks, doesn't it?
BTW your edits were great. Chris Schmidt did add a lot to the paper, but your content is all there, and that is often what's missing from new sp descriptions.
There are two races of maynardi?? This is news to me. So why aren’t the races two different subsp? How can one subspecies have two races? What am I missing??
on ssp maynardi: Lehnert (2010) did extensive comparisons based on the usual stuff, plus color analysis, but unfortunately MtDNA and other tests were not mature enough at the time. His analysis demonstrated there are two races, a northern and a southern in FL, and that they were likely separated for some period during high sea levels, but now hybridize in central FL.
Yeah I think I remember reading that. Wasn’t it his PhD thesis? I thought because they hybridized, the populations formed a cline, and therefore were regarded as one ssp.
Lehnert (2010) is indeed a PhD dissertation. From what I can tell, the material he examined was from no farther south than Sebring in Highlands County, which is really considered to be in central Florida. I don't see where he discusses southern maynardi to be a different "race" than that farther north in Florida. Instead, he makes comparisons of phenotypes between Sebring and the panhandle, where the suture zone is located. The cline he mentions therefore seems to be between maynardi and glaucus, not two "races" or populations of maynardi. Please let me know if I'm interpreting his research incorrectly. I've not noticed any morphological differences between populations in central and southern Florida, which are all strikingly large and impressive, especially later in the season. I observed an individual in my yard just the other day (Clearwater area), and it was a smaller spring phenotype.
As for glaucus not occurring in the Ft. Myers area, there are at least 54 observations on iNat from around Ft. Myers, dated 2008-2024. Also, I have one male from Lee County (in which Ft. Myers is located) from 1983, and two males from southeastern Collier County, also from 1983. These are all truly from southern Florida, and to me they look just like those I have from as far north as Alachua County (Gainesville).
I very much enjoy reading your informative posts JVCalhoun.
They have insights, sound reasoning, and are tactfully presented.
Many thanks for joining the forum !
