Lep Publications - A Call for Information

[Kondla, Norbert FOR:EX]

Yes it would be great to have an updated checklist for butterflies,
preferably posted on a web site for ease of access and ease of updating.  A
list compiled by a group of people in consultation with knowledgable other
people will likely be more correct that any list compiled by one or two
people. However any such list will not be the final word on some issues of
debate and if a group of keen people do want to provide this service to the
butterfly community they should be honest and point out where there are
differing views on correct taxonomy rather than portraying their preference
as the only correct version. What would be even more useful for me is a web
site that posts citations for butterfly articles published in journals and
natural history publications as they come out or on some regular basis.  Not
all of us live close to university libraries and hence it is difficult to
stay current on the literature.  The WWW would be a wonderful way to let the
rest of the world know that something has been written on topic 'x'.  Is
there a keen person out there that is interested in accumulating and posting
lists of current citations ?? Or is somebody already doing such and this
country bumpkin has not yet found the right web site :)

> ----------
> From: 	Hank & Priscilla Brodkin[SMTP:hankb at theriver.com]
> Reply To: 	hankb at theriver.com
> Sent: 	Wednesday, October 06, 1999 10:33 AM
> To: 	SoWestLep at onelist.com; leps-l; naba at naba.org
> Subject: 	Lep Publications - A Call for Information
> 
> 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
>