{"id":21165,"date":"2024-04-06T18:14:19","date_gmt":"2024-04-07T01:14:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/?p=21165"},"modified":"2024-04-07T08:21:15","modified_gmt":"2024-04-07T15:21:15","slug":"2024-april-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/?p=21165","title":{"rendered":"2024 April 6"},"content":{"rendered":"

2024 April 6<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Ian Cooper sends photographs of a velvet mite<\/strong> and a globose springtail<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

\"\"Velvet Mite\u00a0 (Acari:\u00a0 Trombidiidae)\u00a0 Ian Cooper<\/p>\n

\"\"Globose springtail, Ptenothrix sp.<\/em>\u00a0(Coll.: Dicyrtomidae) \u00a0 Ian Cooper<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jeremy Tatum writes:<\/p>\n

On January 4, I made some preliminary remarks about the Annotated Taxonomic Checklist <\/em>(ATC) of<\/em> the Lepidoptera of North America North of Mexico <\/em>edited by Gregory Pohl and Stephen Nanz.\u00a0\u00a0 I have now had time to go through the butterflies as our local species are affected by the ATC.\u00a0 <\/em>I shall be following the ATC<\/em> when I prepare the 2024 Butterfly Report (in January 2025).<\/p>\n

English<\/u> names of our butterflies are not affected by the ATC<\/em>,\u00a0 except that the Western and Brown Elfins are now lumped, so we should now call them all Brown Elfins.\u00a0 I also suggest below that we should call our Coenonympha <\/em> the California Ringlet.<\/p>\n

There are several changes in sequence, which I shall not list here, but the new sequence will become apparent when I produce the 2024 butterfly report.<\/p>\n

The following are the changes in the scientific names of butterflies that I have detected in the ATC.\u00a0 <\/em>(I have not tackled the moths<\/u>.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Hesperiidae (formerly included in a now no longer used Superfamily Hesperioidea) are now included in the Superfamily Papilioidea.\u00a0 What this means when re-written in English with the long words removed, is that you can now happily call the skippers butterflies.<\/p>\n

Th Arctic Skipper\u00a0 is no longer considered to be the same species as the European Chequered Skipper C. palaemon.\u00a0 <\/em>It is now either C. mandan <\/em>or C. skada<\/em>.\u00a0 It is not yet clear which of these two names apply to the Vancouver Island butterflies.\u00a0 Arctic Skipper is not a particularly good name, since it is by no means even approximately restricted to the Arctic.<\/p>\n

The Common and Western Branded Skippers are treated as separate species in the ATC<\/em>, and I shall (admittedly with some reluctance) be following that here.\u00a0 The Common Branded Skipper (known as the Silver-spotted Skipper in the UK) is Hesperia comma<\/em>.\u00a0 This species may occur on Vancouver Island, but the colony on Cordova Spit is believed to be the Western Branded Skipper Hesperia colorado.<\/em><\/p>\n

The tiger swallowtails are no longer in Papilio<\/em>, but are now in Pterourus.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>This not a new-fangled name.\u00a0 It is the genus they used to belong to before they were (inexplicably) lumped with other quite different\u00a0 butterflies in Papilio<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Purplish Copper is now Tharsalea helloides.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Mitoura <\/em>and Incisalia <\/em>are now subgenera of the enlarged genus Callophrys<\/em>.
\n<\/em><\/strong>Thus, we now have:
\nCedar Hairstreak:\u00a0 Callophrys <\/em>(Mitoura<\/em>) gryneus.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Formerly Mitoura rosneri<\/em>.
\nWestern Pine Elfin:\u00a0 Callophrys <\/em>(Incisalia<\/em>) eryphon.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Formerly Incisalia eryphon.
\n<\/em>Moss\u2019s Elfin:\u00a0 Callophrys <\/em>(Incsialia<\/em>) mossii<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Formerly Incisaloa mossii.<\/em>
\nBrown Elfin:\u00a0 Callophrys <\/em>(Incisalia<\/em>) augustinus.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Formerly Incisalia iroides.<\/em><\/p>\n

The name augustinus<\/em> is not a new-fangled name.\u00a0 It is merely returning the Brown Elfin to its former species name before it suffered from lot of unnecessary \u201csplitting\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>The small and large fritillaries are now in the Subfamily Heliconiinae.\u00a0 (Surprising?)<\/p>\n

The larger fritillaries (Zerene, Hydaspe) are now in the genus Argynnis<\/em>, with Speyeria<\/em> being regarded as a subgenus.\u00a0 This now agrees with European practice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The \u201cRinglet\u201d has long caused nomenclatural problems, and such problems are doubtless not yet over. The ATC<\/em> lists four species of Coenonympha<\/em>, two of which do not concern us.\u00a0 The remainder consists of a huge Holarctic assemblage of numerous forms and populations referred to as the \u201ctullia <\/em>complex\u201d.\u00a0 The ATC<\/em> treats this complex as consisting of just two species \u2013 Coenonympha tullia<\/em> and C. california<\/em>.\u00a0 The former has three named subspecies. The latter has numerous subspecies and synonyms. (A rough quick count came to about 30.)\u00a0 The ATC<\/em> does not specifically indicate to which species our Vancouver Island population belongs, but I think it is intended that our butterflies are C. california<\/em>, and, if Invertebrate Alert is to follow ATC <\/em>usage, this is the name that we should henceforth use.<\/p>\n

The ATC<\/em> does not deal with English names, so we are left with the question as to what English name we should use.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cRinglet\u201d is not ideal, since that name is used in the UK for a quite different species.\u00a0 I have sometimes suggested that we should use the UK name \u201cLarge Heath\u201d \u2013 but that won\u2019t do, for Large Heath is C. tullia<\/em>, and our butterfly is no longer tullia<\/em>.\u00a0 We might use \u201cRinglet\u201d with an adjective in front of it. The problem then is \u2013 what adjective?\u00a0 I suppose the obvious solution is to call our butterfly the California Ringlet.<\/p>\n

Generally, the use of special English names for subspecies is to be discouraged \u2013 but if we do use an English name for a subspecies, we might follow what the birdwatchers do, and use parentheses and quotation marks, as in Yellow-rumped (\u201cMyrtle\u201d) Warbler.\u00a0 The English name for our western yellow-throated population of this bird has problems of its own, for it is Incorrect.\u00a0 I suppose the day will come when Lorquin\u2019s Admiral and Milbert\u2019s Tortoiseshell will also suffer from Incorrectness.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2024 April 6 \u00a0\u00a0 Ian Cooper sends photographs of a velvet mite and a globose springtail: Velvet Mite\u00a0 (Acari:\u00a0 Trombidiidae)\u00a0 Ian Cooper Globose springtail, Ptenothrix sp.\u00a0(Coll.: Dicyrtomidae) \u00a0 Ian Cooper     Jeremy Tatum writes: On January 4, I made some preliminary remarks about the Annotated Taxonomic Checklist (ATC) of the Lepidoptera of North America […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-invertebrate-alert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21165"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21169,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21165\/revisions\/21169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}