Undet. Papilionid from Rio Grande Valley, TX

[Alexei G. Belik]

Well, I've got the the complete insomnia this night (3:30 A.M.) and
only this fact has caused my "stormy" epistolary activity  on this List
(strange, the winter is close, so all russian bears should be 
sleeping... :-)

D.P.Howson wrote:

> At the risk of appearing insensitive to those who have to pay for their messages, I thought the moth photograph the most interesting contribution this week. At least we could see for ourselves what had been found. As long as the images are greatly compressed there should be few people they will upset, surely?
>
> Dave Howson

Yes, just from the idle curiosity one minute ago I've  opened 
Mike's GIF file "swall2.gif" in the "Adobe Photoshop". 
Then I transformed it into the JPEG file with the option 
"low quality, small file". Instead of 73,5 Kb GIF I've got 
just **15,5 Kb** JPG of **exactly** the same screen quality! 
If one do not suppose to print the graphic file later, 
this is the good solution.

But I do not believe that everybody around here have such tools 
like Photoshop...
So guys, let's do not send such cool stuff like the images into 
the List! John Himmelman so exactly formulated the explanation, 
and I cannot say better. So let's stop this discussion, which 
I carelessly initiated (especially as Dr. Gall so kindly informed 
us, already, about the corresponding amendments in the LEPS-L's 
information letter), and turn our attention onto the more interesting 
things.

Returning to the subject, after all, Mike Quinn's  insect is
definitely Urania fulgens, not U. leilus as it was suggested
by some List's contributors previously. U. leilus has the 
distinct coloration on the hw. ups. Where is Dr. Douglas Yanega 
- he could support this, I believe, as the specialist in 
South American leps.

Further, when here was the discussion about the migrating 
Uranias, and when the West Indies was mentioned, I recalled 
about yet another species, namely Urania boisduvalii (I may 
somewhat misspell the specific epithet). I definitely know 
that it is confined to Cuba, but perhaps it also can migrate 
into the adjacent areas, don't you think? I never had it in 
my collection and have not its picture on hands, but as far 
as I can recall, the species is more similar with U. fulgens 
than with U. leilus.


Sincerely yours,
Alexei Belik

P.S. Hoping next night I'll have a normal sleep, so my babbling 
will not appear here once again for a long time.

--
Alexei G. Belik
Saratov, Russia
e-mail: belik at fannet.ru