Lower Rio Grande Rarities
Andrew Warren
warrena at mail.science.orst.edu
Thu Jan 10 00:40:30 EST 2002
In response to Chris' challenge to post records for rarities from the
lower RGV, here is what I can contribute. I have never been in the
region, but I am good friends with a collector who lived in Pharr in the
1940's.
While many of Hugh Avery Freeman's unusual and interesting records are
published, these records are widely scattered, and some interesting
records have not been published.
In June, 1998, Avery gave me the majority of his USA skipper collection
(his Mexican skipper collection, as well as his collection of
Megathyminae, were donated to the American Museum of Natural History long
ago), including the material from the lower RGV listed below. All are
skippers, and all are in my collection (for now anyway- they will all end
up in a public collection sooner than later). I have not repeated Avery's
name as the collector for each record (all are collected by Hugh Avery
Freeman, unless indicated otherwise).
Most of the interesting records from Pharr are from when Avery and his
family lived in the valley (Avery is currently living in Garland, outside
of Dallas).
If anyone has questions / problems with the taxonomy used below, please
send me a private message.
Proteides mercurius mercurius
1 near fresh male
Pharr, 25-IV-1945
Chioides zilpa
1 fresh female
Pharr, 19-IX-1947
Aguna asander asander
1 somewhat worn female
Pharr, 22-VIII-1945
Typhedanus undulatus
1 fresh female missing both tails
Pharr, 19-IX-1947
Polythrix octomaculata
1 fresh male missing both tails
Pharr, 10-III-1945
Urbanus doryssus
1 worn male
Pharr, 11-III-1945
Astraptes alector hopfferi
1 somewhat worn female PARATYPE of Astraptes gilberti
Pharr, 21-X-1944
Astraptes anaphus annetta
1 nearly fresh female
Pharr, 9-IX-1944
Cabares potrillo potrillo
1 fresh female
Pharr, 2-XI-1947
Celaenorrhinus fritzgaertneri
1 nearly fresh male
Pharr, 20-II-1945
Avery told me that this specimen was collected from inside the gymnasium
at the school where he taught. I regularly find this species under
highway culverts in Mexico...
Celaenorrhinus stallingsi
1 fresh female
Pharr, 8-XI-1944
Collected by Louise Freeman (Avery's wife) off garden flowers while Avery
was at work.
Spathilepis clonius
1 nearly fresh male
Pharr, 2-XI-1947
Cogia calchas (maybe not a rarity, but just for the record)
2 fresh females
Pharr, 29-IX-1946, 7-IV-1948
Nisoniades rubescens
1 somewhat worn male
Pharr, 23-X-1945
Gorgythion begga pyralina
1 nearly fresh female
Pharr, 31-III-1946
Carrhenes canescens
1 fresh male
Pharr, 5-V-1945
1 fresh female
Pharr, 16-II-1945
Grais stigmaticus stigmaticus
1 fresh male
Pharr, 22-VIII-1945
1 nearly fresh female
Pharr, 23-VIII-1945
1 somewhat worn male (not from the valley, but of interest anyway)
Dallas, Dallas Co., 15-IX-1956
Timochares ruptifasciata
1 fresh female, Brownsville, 29-VIII-1944
1 fresh male, Pharr, 21-X-1944
Synapte pecta (often listad as a ssp. of malitiosa)
4 fresh males and 7 fresh females
Brownsville XI-1946, VIII-1946
Pharr, V-1945, VIII-1945, X-1944
Vidius perigenes
2 fresh females
T-100 Roadside Park, Cameron Co., 28-III-1964, R. O. Kendall
2 fresh males
6.5 mi E Los Fresnos, Cameron Co., 25-VI-1964
Monca tyrtaeus
2 fresh males, 2 fresh females
Pharr, III, V-1946
Nastra julia
1 female PARATYPE
Pharr, 1-I-1945
1 male PARATYPE
Pharr, 2-I-1945
1 female PARATYPE
Pharr, 28-I-1945
1 male and 1 female PARATYPES
San Marcos, 13-VI-1940
1 male PARATYPE
Uvalde, 31-V-1942
Cymaenes trebius (often listed as a ssp. of odilia)
1 fresh male, 1 fresh female,
Pharr, 4-V-1946
Decinea percosius
2 fresh males, 1 somewhat worn female
Southmost, 4-IV-1948 (males), 7-IV-1948 (female)
Perichares philetes adela
1 nearly fresh male
Pharr, 9-XII-1944
not from the lower RGV, but of interest?:
Adopaeodes prittwitzi
12 mi N Alpine, TX, on Rd. 118
1 fresh male, 25-VIII-1961, W. S. McAlpine [ok, it looks a bit like
Calephelis...]
1 fresh female, same spot, 11-VI-1949
1 worn female, same spot, 22-IX-1950, Joe Elkins
Anatrytone mazai
1 fresh male PARATYPE
Laredo, Webb Co., TX, 2-VI-1935
Anatrytone logan lagus
1 nearly fresh male
Brownsville, 5-VI-1940
Quasimellana eulogius
1 fresh male, Brownsville, 28-XI-1947
1 fresh male, Brownsville, 18-XI-1951
Lerodea arabus (= dysaules)
1 fresh female, Brownsville, 13-XI-1963
1 fresh female, Brownsville, 18-XI-1951
Panoquina lucas (=sylvicola)
1 fresh female, Pharr, 12-X-1946
1 fresh male, Pharr, 15-X-1944
Panoquina panoquinoides
3 fresh males and two fresh females
6.5 mi E Los Fresnos, 2-VIII-1964
Panoquina evansi
1 fresh female, Pharr, 2-XI-1947
1 fresh male, Pharr, 12-X-1946
Panoquina hecebolus
1 fresh pair, Pharr, 15-X-1944
1 fresh male, Pharr, 16-IX-1944
Nyctelius nyctelius
1 fresh female, Pharr, 15-IX-1945
1 fresh male, Pharr, 9-IX-1944
out of order:
Cogia outis
1 fresh female
Brownsville, 14-X-1974, J. B. Vernon
and one final record, a unique record for the USA (see News of the
Lepidopterists' Society 39(3):41,60 for details and color photos):
Urbanus belli
1 fresh male
Brownsville, 23-VI-1968, collector unknown (specimen in American Museum of
Natural History)
I hope this will be of some use to some of you...
Best,
Andy Warren
On Mon, 31 Dec 2001, Chris J. Durden wrote:
> As Mike points out, there has been a recent run of truly remarkable
> rarities sighted and photographed in the lower Rio Grande Valley. This is
> not only due to a favorable episode in the climatic cycle but to the
> recruitment of many new observers to the butterflying movement. We can view
> this as a positive aspect of a movement that has also been responsible for
> fostering a decline in the number of active collectors in the field - a
> negative aspect in my opinion.
> I suspect many of the readers of this list have at some time, made a
> trip to "The Valley". I would like to challenge you to post your collected
> records to this list. I shall compile them as they come in. Maybe we can
> determine the phase of the climatic cycle that promotes the occurrence of
> these rarities in the US. I would suggest reporting your records from the
> 13 southernmost counties of Texas. Some of you may know of specimens in
> other collections (some of which may have been taken without property-owner
> permission). I would hate to see these records disappear because of their
> legal (or retroactive legal status) so I would suggest reporting them in
> some anonymous manner. A specimen photo would raise some of these records
> from the level of hearsay to the level of acceptable record. The 1981
> redefinition of the U.S. Legal term "wildlife" renders all un-permitted
> collections of butterflies on Wildlife Refuges illegal contraband for the
> period both after and before 1981 by present interpretation, even though
> the concept of anterior culpability appears to be unconstitutional.
> There was good collecting in the RGV in the 1960's-70's. Mike Rickard
> and Bill McGuire published a checklist based on these records. Roy Kendall
> also published many new records from this period. Raymond Neck scoured the
> literature for published records before this period and summarized some of
> his findings in his Field Guide to Butterflies of Texas.. There was good
> collecting in the RGV in the 1940's and H. A. Freeman published many of
> these records. There was another beneficial spell around 1900 which led to
> some of the inclusions by Holland in The Butterfly Book, some of which have
> not been seen since. The first beneficial spell on record was at the time
> of the International Boundary Survey and the Emory Expedition, the results
> of which were published by Scudder in the 1870's.
> ...............Chris Durden
>
> At 03:47 PM 12/31/2001 -0600, you wrote:
> >Over the last few years, the local Valleyites have come to develop an
> >awareness of the incredible butterfly diversity that exists along the Rio
> >Grande. They've built numerous gardens and are now sending in regular
> >reports to the TX-Butterfly Listserv. The first link below has photos of a
> >portion of the recent rarities reported from along the Rio Grande. Mike
> >
> >Recent Rio Grande Valley Rarities
> >http://www.naba.org/chapters/nabast/recent.html
> >
> >NABA-South Texas
> >http://www.naba.org/chapters/nabast/
> >
> >NABA Butterfly Park
> >http://www.naba.org/nababp.html
> >
> >TX-Butterfly Listserv
> >http://listserv.uh.edu/archives/tx-butterfly.html
> >
> >-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> >Mike Quinn
> >New Braunfels, TX
> >ento at satx.rr.com
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> >
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>
>
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