Galapagos butterflies

[John Grehan]

 mothman617 at aol.com wrote:

 Little is written of the
>Insect fauna of the Galapogos. Try the works of Charles Darwin or Alfred
>Russell Wallace.

While quantity is relative, I don't think that "little is written" is quite
accurate. In particular, Stewart Peck has published extensive compilations
on the Galapagos insect literature, and my recollection (hazey, and I don't
have
the source to hand) is that 95% of Galapagos species were estimated to be
documented. There are certainly numerous papers on Galapagos insects, 
or papers that include Galapagos species in systematic revisions of various 
groups.

There are certainly endemic species of Lepidoptera on Galapagos, and
some of these and other endemic plants and animals may have been inherited
from former island arcs in the eastern Pacific.

Peck, S. (1996). Origin and development of an insect fauna on a remote
archipelago: the Galapagos islands, Ecuador. In The Origin and Evolution of
Pacific Island Biotas, New Guinea to Eastern Polynesia, Patterns and
Processes (A
Keast, S. E. Miller eds.) pp. 91-122. SPB Publishing, Amsterdam, The
Netherlands.

John Grehan