Lep Publications - A Call for Information

[Hank & Priscilla Brodkin]

Paul, Chris, et al
It has been suggested that folks interested in leps subscribe to a large
number of publications - like people interested in birds do.  As a
birder I do subscribe to four journals and one popular magazine.  
One thing the popular magazine used to do - it published a regular
column by a taxonomist that kept us abreast of changes in the wind.
One organization, the AOU, took the lead as far as North American birds
were concerned.  Their territory covers all of North America through
Panama, the West Indies, and Hawaii.  They have a checklist committee
formed of highly respectable workers in ornithology that studies the
peer-reviewed papers, make decisions on splits and lumps, and publish in
the AUK updates and changes to the North American list on a more or less
regular basis - and once very 10 or so years publishes the "AOU
Checklist of North American Birds".
Paul Opler is on the right track, imho, forming such a committee for
butterflies.  It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.  I hope
enough high caliber folks have volunteered to join Paul's committee and
I hope that politics does not strangle these efforts.
In the meantime - for those of us who are REALLY amateurs, in the worse
sense of the word, and have not the means to subscribe to more than a
few journals, it would be nice to see a regular column in one of the
journals - and why not in American Butterflies, Jeff? - with information
on taxonomic work going on.  I realize NABA has a Checklist Committee
also - but since the first checklist that they published - I have seen
nothing in American Butterflies describing the work this committee is
doing.
At any rate - there is enough interest in this subject - that someone,
preferably a published lepidopterist, with a background in taxonomy,
somewhere, should publish this information regularly in a forum that is
accessible to a wide spectrum of interested folks.

-- 
	                 Hank Brodkin
	          Carr Canyon, Cochise County, AZ
             SouthEast Arizona Butterfly Association
          http://www.naba.org/chapters/nabasa/home.html