Us and Them

[Chris J. Durden]

Them are us!
  Since (partial) retirement I rarely carry a net in the field (in areas I
know well). I find I see more species, get closer to individuals, get
longer looks, and can sometimes handle (lick your finger and let the
nectaring butterfly crawl onto it, for a real close look). The minute I
carry a camera the butterflies seem to recede and decrease in numbers. When
I pull out a net to take a sample the diversity seems to decrease and
approachability receeds to just beyond handle length. If you find something
you do not recognize, a photograph may help in identification, but not
always. If you take a specimen you can be sure of what you saw. If the
specimen is killed quickly by pinching, dried quickly and NOT RELAXED, the
DNA from part of it may be studied later and many questions of relationship
answered. If you took a specimen and the genus is revised with changes to
the taxonomy, your identification can be revised. If you do not take a
specimen no-one will really know what you saw. If you do not take a
specimen and the population goes extinct, some may think the species was
never there!
...........Chris Durden

At 09:17  26/05/99 -0400, you wrote:
>
>>And it has not escaped me that you collectors are getting a kick out of
>>putting
>>a non-collector on the defensive;)
>
>John Himmelman
>
>Easy does it on the "you" please. As a collector I don't get any kicks and
>don't have any
>interest in putting a non-collector on the defensive just for non-collecting.
>
>John Grehan
>
>