Serious first, fun second.

[Chuck Vaughn]

Hi Ron,

I want to add a couple recent personal experiences that back up the
need for voucher specimens and independent verification. This also
relates to something else I've read recently and that is the validity
of eyewitness reports. Such reports have always been considered the
most important evidence in court cases but as we learn more about
how human memory works it is beginning to appear that they should be
given less importance and scientific evidence should be given priority.

I have a friend who has some interest in butterflies and occasionally
calls me with a description of something he's seen. The descriptions
never match any butterfly native to our region. Somehow he misses the
key characteristics necessary even for a guess.

Another friend at work has a much greater interest and plants many
flowering plants to attract butterflies in his yard and catches and
mounts some. Recently he came to work with the news that he had
caught an unusual swallowtail. It was almost all black with only
remnants of tails. I asked if it could be an Anise Swallowtail
(P.zelicaon) and he said it had much more black than that. We got
on the internet and went to the Butterflies of North America site
and looked at all the swallowtails. He identified it as P. indra.
I showed him that there were no confirmed records of P. indra in
Santa Clara county and this could be of interest. I wanted to see
it so I could confirm it. A few days later he brought it in. Well
guess what? It was a beat up P. zelicaon with no tails left.

This shows that even people with some experience can mis-id obvious
specimens and that id'ing from memory is not very reliable.

Chuck <aa6g at aa6g.org>

-----------------------------------
 
>> Bob,
>> 
>> Are you sure the Lorquin's Admirals were not California Sisters?
>> I've been to Yosemite lots of times and have never seen Lorquin's
>> Admirals there but California Sisters are everywhere.
> 
> This is a general editorial and not directed at Bob in any way. The masses
> of birders that have come over into lepping have brought their entire
> vocabulary and way of doing business into this arena - except for one very
> notable item.  My understanding, as a non-birder, is that there are some
> stiff requirements among birders to insure proper identifications. Top on
> this list is confirmation of ID by an accompanying person AND expert
> verification.  I often see bogus listings in their unilateral "sightings"
> of leps. How many of these have now, or will, become dots on maps? No one
> else present, no vouchers, and usually no pictures. BOY, what an honest and
> accurate group. ?
> 
> Can I make an observation?  This indicates something more serious to me
> though. It is that the majority of these folks remain primarily birders,
> and thus serious about birds and not butterflies. This is evidenced by, and
> why they are much more lax about, butterfly IDing than for birds. In other
> words their interest in butterflies is largely a passing fad - something
> they do on the side while being serious birders. This is evidenced by the
> _fact_ that a very large number (have now completed their butterfly life
> list) are now all "flocking" over to prey on the dragonflies. If they were
> all so honest or accurate, Audubon would not have made any rules relative
> to identification. So if Audubon doesn't blindly, naively, categorically,
> trust their own members - and - are so serious about scientific bird
> accuracy that they are not afraid to "offend" someone by questioning and
> requiring confirmation of identifications - how much more should
> requirements and safeguards be placed on these same folks who have now
> moved over to our leps land?
> 
> Gosh, this is like a kid going to a neighbor's house where the rules are
> not so tough. We can go over to leps land and all be instant experts. That
> is a lot more "fun" than the rigidity of birding. Birding is serious,
> butterflies are just fun. How many times has someone posted those exact
> words to me here or in private.  Ron, lighten up, butterflying is just
> fun... we are just having fun... Well, their "fun" is someone else's
> science. There is plenty of fun in lepping. But not by sacrificing the
> serious and scientific part of it. IDing and reporting living organisms -
> as demonstrated by the Audubon rules - is not something to play with.
> 
> And people wonder why folks like myself or Chris are not big fans of NABA
> or see a dumbing down of lepidopterology. Further, the NABA names list is
> not The standardized list of common names. Far from it.
> 
> Ron
> 
> PS  I forgot to mention that I saw an Ivory Billed Woodpecker in the swamp
> near my house last week. Yes, I was alone,  but what does that have to do
> with anything.
> 
> 
> 
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> 


 
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