more tenuous taxonomy

[Kondla, Norbert SRM:EX]

Boloria myrina disappeared from the North American species lists a long time
ago. The reason is rather shocking; it seems to be because one person could
not see any differences between B. selene and B. myrina. For the past 60
years this butterfly has been treated as a subspecies of the European B.
selene, apparently because Clark (1941) could see little difference between
the North American and European butterflies. Besides presenting a very weak
argument for lumping, Clark also expressed the view that Speyeria mormonia
washingtonia is a subspecies of the Asian taxon aglaja (variably placed in
Argynnis, Fabriciana or Mesoacidalia by various authors). To his eyes, S.
mormonia washingtonia "does not seem to differ in any tangible character
from A. aglaia". Thus I place no credence in his taxonomic call with respect
to myrina/selene. In contrast, species status for B. myrina is supported by
the results of laboratory hybridization experiments by Oliver (1977). In
contrast to Clark's inability to see differences; Kondla and J. Laiho were
able to see several phenotypic differences between northern European and
North American specimens and Oliver reports some differences also. So I see
nothing in the literature that convinces me that myrina and selene are
conspecific but see published information that supports treating them as
distinct species. simply looking at some specimens critically also causes me
to use the taxonomic treatment of Boloria myrina here in North America, as
was the accepted practice prior to Clark's paper. If anyone is aware of any
published or unpublished information to support the idea that Boloria selene
is present in North America; please advise. Thank you.
CLARK, A.H. 1941. Notes on the American respresentatives of the butterfly
genus Argynnis. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences 31(9):381-384.
OLIVER, C.G. 1977. Genetic incompatibility between populations of the
nymphalid butterfly Boloria selene from England and the United States.
Heredity 39(2):279-285.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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       



 
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