Reference for NA butterfly checklist

[Mark Walker]

Ken Philip wrote:

> 	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.
> 
	I'm curious as to the questioning of the utility of subspecies.  I'm
probably not looking at this as a biologist would, though.  From my
perspective (whether or not _subspecies_ is correct taxonomically), the fact
that a particular lep species exhibits some unusual but uniform set of
characteristics when it is isolated to a particular region (or is using an
unusual larval food plant), is of great interest.  If there were no way of
uniquely classifying these cases, it would seem that we would potentially be
missing a lot of very valuable scientific information.

	Again, I'm probably not interpreting Ken correctly, so I'll just
wait for his response.

	Mark Walker.