Speyeria Shenanigans and Pieris

[Barb Beck]

Thanks Norbert for the pages on Pieris and Speyeria.

Question to Norbert and others.  I can see differences in the butterflies
pictured but being a novice cannot differentiate individual variation from
variation between the species/subspecies/whatever.  The references I have
are somewhat confusing.  Specifically what field marks are you using to
differentiate these butterflies?

My question about field marks is not just for my own curiosity but because
even with my limited knowledge of these insects I am involved in teaching
others how to identify them in the field

I fully appreciate that my question is hardest to those of you intimately
familiar with these butterflies.  You just know the butterfly because it
simply looks like that butterfly.  You no longer have to think in terms of
field marks that beginners must use to get a handle on the butterfly before
they can identify the butterfly by "looks".  I am struggling hard preparing
a learning CD of bird sounds from my recordings for my students. I am
unfortunately to the point where a song just sounds like the song of a
particular species.  My student need pointers to listen for until they reach
that level... which they are never going to do if I do not quit looking at
butterflies and get the earphones back on so I at least have the first CD
cut for them on Monday.

Barb Beck
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Barb.Beck at ualberta.ca


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-leps-l at lists.yale.edu [mailto:owner-leps-l at lists.yale.edu]On
Behalf Of Kondla, Norbert FOR:EX
Sent: September 6, 2001 1:24 PM
To: 'lepsl'; 'altabugs'
Subject: Speyeria Shenanigans


I ran into some interesting Speyeria in southern BC this season. I have put
an image and a request for comments on http://www.norbert.eboard.com under
the heading of "BC Speyeria". This is not an easy group of butterflies to
deal with, in part due to the usual conflicting descriptions and
interpretations presented in the literature and possibly also due to
inadequacy in presently recognized species-level taxonomy. The image is
large when viewed on the web site. Right click on your mouse to copy the
image into your system and resize it to suit your tastes and to see all four
specimens in one view. Enjoy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Norbert Kondla  P.Biol., RPBio.
Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management
845 Columbia Avenue, Castlegar, British Columbia V1N 1H3
Phone 250-365-8610
Mailto:Norbert.Kondla at gems3.gov.bc.ca
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca



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