Subspecies

[Kenelm Philip]

	Mark Walker, quite rightly, questioned my comment about doubting
the utility of subspecies. I should have been more specific (sometimes
things just sort of slip out) and said that I doubt, in many cases, the
utility of existing subspecies names for arctic/subarctic butterflies.

	I have no quarrel with geographically well-delineated subspecies,
which are common enough in the western US. But the history of applying
names to arctic butterflies tends to look like this: person A makes a
trip to arctic region X at some longitude, and describes a new butterfly.
Then person B visits arctic region Y at a different longitude, finds
a butterfly that looks a bit different from the first one, and describes
a new subspecies. No one involved has any information as to whether the
two 'subspecies' are possibly merely arbitrary points from a cline--which
in fact they may be, but that fact won't emerge until a _lot_ of trips
have been made to intermediate longitudes (not easy, or inexpensive, in
these roadless regions).

	There is an old comment that applies here--a sort of law of arctic
taxonomy: The boundaries between described arctic subspecies always fall
in uncollected areas.

	A more general problem I have with subspecies is that their accepted
nomenclature hides the one single most important piece of information about
them: where they are found. What is your first question when someone tells
you about a new ssp. of a butterfly in which you are interested? WHERE is
it from? It would really be a lot handier if these geographic forms were
_named_ for their localities--then you wouldn't have to ask. I know this
is rank heresy, and will never come to pass--but one can still dream...

	Sometimes an approximation to this happens: as with _Parnassius
phoebus golovinus_. But it would be still clearer if it were called, let's
say: _Parnassius phoebus_ [Golovnin Bay AK]. Not everyone knows that the
village of Golovin is on Golovnin Bay...

	I am talking here about old-fashioned morphological subspecies.
When you start with DNA I suspect the number of subspecies could become
astronomical.

	Now I can prepare to receive the brickbats which will presumably
be heading my way...

							Ken Philip
fnkwp at uaf.edu