(Butterfly) C. ismeria female posted

Ron Gatrelle gatrelle at tils-ttr.org
Sat Apr 7 19:09:28 EDT 2001


The moth type photos and their genitalia are finished but not yet loaded at
www.tils-ttr.org photo library. They should be posted any time.  However,
the female of Chlosyne ismeria ismeria is now posted there.

Ismeria was described from a very poor copy of a John Abbot drawing. The
taxon was a mystery for over a century. I rediscovered this in Georgia and
the paper on this is in The Taxonomic Report Vol. 1:2, 1998. The first page
of this article is also posted on the web site under Taxonomic Report via
the home page. There is also an article in the News section under News 3.
where you can find a copy of the original painting (bottom of page one).

The painted specimen on which this name is based was of a female. Note on
the actual female specimen from coastal Louisiana that there is a complete
row of marginal silver spots - a diagnostic feature of this subspecies. The
ventral forewing of the painting and the specimen are the same. Note that
the VFW painting has one extra vein at the outer margin (making one spot
into a fictitious two).  This remains a very rare species is collections
known from only three males at the type locality upper coastal Georgia - a
few from the panhandle of Florida and coastal Louisiana.

Some taxonomists have felt the new combination of Chlosyne ismeria nycteis
for the common eastern US subspecies is destabilizing. According to the
ICZN there appears to be two options. (If you want the code citation I can
look it up for you.) The other option is Chlosyne nycteis ismeria. BUT this
is only if certain conditions are met. I do not see these as having been
met. So C. ismeria nycteis is correct by me. (My friend Don Lafontaine
likes the other.) Either way, the biological entities (ismeria and nycteis)
are good subspecies.

Ron Gatrelle




 
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