north american bfly list-NOT

[Kondla, Norbert FOR:EX]

got to thinking about the recent requests for NA butterfly lists and i
realized that after studying butterflies for 28 years - I have never seen a
North American list. what i have seen are excellent books and lists that
have the words North American attached to them but which in fact deal with
only two countries of the several countries that occur in north america.
some even deal with butterflies of hawai - surely not part of the north
american continent. if anyone knows of a real list for North America, i too
would like to see such a list. another thing for newcomers to butterfly
study to remember is that lists and books are usually out of date as quickly
as they hit a web site or the bookstore shelf. sometimes they are out of
date by many years because the authors were not aware of relevant literature
(and after all no single person or small group of people can be totally on
top of all the literature). generic, species and subspecies level
nomenclature and taxonomy has been quite dynamic and there will be more
changes to come. and even when changes have been published there will be
debates among specialists who chose not to agree with the views of another
worker. anyway some examples of things using the naba list (which i use
regularly): add Parnassius smintheus and P. behri, delete Papilio bairdii
(just a subspecies of machaon), delete Pieris napi and replace with the
species Pieris oleracea, Pieris marginalis and Pieris angelika; add Euchloe
naina; add Anthocharis stella; add Colias christina and Colias tyche; add
Erebia mancinus, change erebia occulta to erebia anyuica, add oeneis
philipi; speyeria atlantis and hesperis are distinct species, etc. i think
you get the idea, we still have lots to learn and there are more people
looking into butterfly names and taxonomy than in the past. regardless of a
future north american list, i agree that it would be good to have a more up
to date list  of butterflies of canada and united states - for people like
me, a list with subspecies would be ideal. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Norbert Kondla  P.Biol., RPBio.
Forest Ecosystem Specialist, Ministry of Environment
845 Columbia Avenue, Castlegar, British Columbia V1N 1H3
Phone 250-365-8610
Mailto:Norbert.Kondla at gems3.gov.bc.ca
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca