Voucher specimens

Patrick Roper proper at dial.pipex.com
Thu Sep 11 12:19:50 EDT 1997


Voucher specimens

While accepting that these often have a value, they do present some
problems, as Neil Jones has observed.  Take for example the so-called Arran
Brown, Erebia ligea, whose status as a British insect is uncertain and
disputed.  There are several "voucher specimens" from different parts of
Scotland including three caught by a schoolboy in 1969 and exhibited under
the name of Erebia aethiops.  The area has subsequently been visited by
many entomologists but no further examples have been found.  A mistake, a
fake, a hoax, genuine?  Who knows?

There is a similar story of the Large Copper, Lycaena dispar, from
Somerset, several reputed specimens of which exist in Taunton Museum.  This
is not, as far as I know, generally thought to be sound evidence of their
occurrence in Somerset up to the middle of the last century.  Also the
former existence of Erebia epiphron in Ireland has been questioned, despite
a number of voucher specimens.

Finally there is the mysterious Snowdon Speckled Wood, Parage aegeria
drumensis.  This was a large "subspecies" that supposedly flew above the
tree line in the Snowdon area and, apparently, a box of vouchers was in
existence before World War II but has subsequently disappeared.  Nothing
further seems to be known about the butterfly and it would be interesting
to hear from anyone can can supply more detail.  I hope whoever it was who
caught the boxful didn't succeed in wiping the thing out altogether.  It
would be somewhat of a double whammy to exterminate a subspecies then lose
the evidence for its existence!

Patrick Roper
--
South View, Churchland Lane, Sedlescombe, East Sussex TN33 0PF, UK
Telephone: +44 (0) 1424 870208  Fax: +44 (0) 1424 870208 
Mobile: 0468 474936  Email:proper at dial.pipex.com



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