Subject: Collecting Euphydryas sp.

From: Jeff & Patricia Harding <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Jul 1996 00:12:13 -0700

Dan Thackaberry and I held the 2nd annual Snow Peak,
Oregon 4JC Friday, July 12.  Good weather prompted our
moving it ahead a bit.  We haven't put our numbers together
yet, but for my part, I had fewer species, and for most species,
fewer individuals.

There is a problem with checkerspots.  There is a lot of variation,
and I am not sure my identification is always right.  Fortunately,
I can collect a few voucher specimens to bring to the fall meeting
of the Nothwest Lepidopterists for confirmation.

I spend most of the day hiking in the high rock gardens at the top
of Snow Peak, 3000' to 4105' elevation, where both Euphydryas editha
and E. chalcedona colon occur.  I also visit lower spots on the way
up and back.

Last year I tallied 219 E. chalcedona and 18 E. editha. This year it
was only 43 of the former and  23 of the latter.  What a wild array of
patterns they show! Following the guidance in Pyle's Audubon Field
Guide to Butterflies of North America, I guess the small red ones
are E. editha and the dark ones, large and small, are E. chalcedona colon.

There was an interesting article in American Butterflies covering these
species, by Camille Parmesan (Winter 1995), but it isn't much help.
"Chalcedon Checkerspots can be easily distinguished from Edith's by the
presence of large white spots along...the abdomen", she says.  I have
yet to see any with white spots on the abdomen.  She suggests Chalcedon
will generally be larger, and have more angular forewings, but the
largest one I collected seems to have the roundest forewings.
In general, the red ones do seem to be the smallest, but I don't notice
a correlation between the amount of red and angular forewings.  Is it
a mistake to rely on the color so much?

In a sidebar associated with Parmesan's article, Jeffrey Glassberg
speculates that the the color of the antennal club may be a field mark.
All five individuals I collected had very light golden clubs when pinned,
with only the large dark female Chalcedon showing some duskyness at the
base of the club.  As they dry, all the clubs are turning dark.  So the
color changes, but not to obscure a useful field mark.

I did try photography this year, but it slows me down.  For efficient
surveying the net is hard to beat.  Collecting a few voucher specimens
of the difficult species is imperative.

-------------------------------
Patricia and Jeff Harding
Patricia does the orchids,
Jeff does the birds and butterflies
Lebanon, Oregon, USA--
 [email-masked]

---

From: Neil Jones <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Jul 1996 17:10:19 GMT

> of the Nothwest Lepidopterists for confirmation.

This sounds reasonable enough. If you can't identify them in the field
This doesn't necessarily fall into the recreational collecting category
that is causing the controversy.

This group of checkerspots is indeed very variable and a fascinating
subject to study. In our species (aurinia) it is often possible to
identify the originating colony from looking at a photograph of the
specimen. The variation becomes even more obvious if you take two
photographs and process them using certain computer techiniques.

The larger colonies are often much more variable than the smaller colonies.

> of the difficult species is imperative.

I am now using a different method. Aurinia is shortly to go on the protected
list here and I have been looking at things like E. editha bayensis in
California, which _is_ on the protected list.

You can use a video camera. They often have fantastic zooms and although
you get a shaky image, if it is hand held, it can be frozen or as in my case
fed into a computer. This enables the study of the more endangered
forms without potentially damaging the population.

Of course if you have the patience you can use a tripod and make a nice
nature film of the results.

--
Neil Jones- [email-masked] "The beauty and genius of a work of art
may be reconceived, though its first material expression be destroyed, but when
the last individual of a race of living things breathes no more another heaven
and another earth must pass before such a one can be again." William Beebe