Reference for NA butterfly checklist

Kenelm Philip fnkwp at aurora.alaska.edu
Wed Mar 24 14:14:08 EST 1999


	It depends on what you want the list for. The most recently
published list (1995) is the NABA Checklist & English Names of North Amer-
ican Butterflies. In my estimation, however, that is most useful as a source
for English names, not as a standard reference for scientific names. For
one oddity, the taxa _Colias boothii_ and _C. thula_ (now considered as NA
races of _Colias tyche_) are totally omitted from the NABA list, which
was compiled under the older assumption that these were hybrids between
_C. hecla and _C nastes_. Also, subspecies are not addressed at all. I
have many doubts about the utility of subspecies, but they are in such
general use that a checklist should include them.

	For the scientific names of North American butterflies, the most
recent list is Ferris' Supplement to the Miller/Brown 'A Catalog/Checklist
of the Butterflies of America North of Mexico'. This came out in 1989. The
Miller/Brown list was published in 1981. For those who object to the
'splitting' in the Miller/Brown list, there is also Hodges' 'Check List of
the Lepidoptera of American North of Mexico', issued as part of MONA in 1983
(but I gather that the Miller/Brown list included more recent material
than the MONA list).

	Note that the NABA list is just that: a list. To be useful for
scientific purposes, a catalogue should include a synonymy--so the user
can decide which older names are now replaced by which newer names, and
ideally should also contain individual justification (in the form of notes)
for any changes made by the authors. The Hodges list has synonymy, but only
the Miller/Brown list (despite its controversial level of splitting) has
notes.

	All of these are useful for various purposes--but all of them are
not useful for all purposes.

	Finally, there is also a butterfly checklist (scientific names)
compiled by Julian Donahue--I do not know if that has yet appeared in a
printed form.

							Ken Philip
fnkwp at uaf.edu



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