SPRING EDITION: SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER AFRICAN 2017- 5 THE BUTTERFLY LEPIDOPTERISTS’ SOCIETY OF AFRICA NEWS LATEST NEWS Welcome to the Spring edition of African Butterfly News! I trust everyone has dusted off their nets, recharged their camera batteries and sorted out their home chores in readiness for the coming season. With a few exceptions, the 2016 - 2017 season was one to forget, with generally small butterfly- emergences, few significant new records and severe weather conditions, culminating in the catastrophic fire in the Southern Cape in June. Hopefully the coming season will be better... LepSoc Africa (LSA) have been busy with conservation efforts (refer to the report below on the Margate water pipeline saga) and new ventures, including the Aloeides and Kedestes Conservation Projects. Mark Williams very kindly offered to perform an editing role for the Newsletter – hopefully this copy (and the previous three editions) is relatively free of taxonomic errors or spelling mistakes! This magazine relies on material from you, the members of LepSoc Africa. Please forward Jeremy Dobson ([email protected]) any news, or photographs that might be of interest. If anyone has ideas regarding future format or content, please feel free to make suggestions. Margate Pipeline Saga (Simon Joubert) Some of you will be familiar with the Margate typelocality of the rare Coastal Rocksitter (Durbania amakosa albescens) and Margate Ketsi Blue (Lepidochrysops ketsi leucomacula). A potentially devastating ecological incident - the construction of a large diameter bulk-water pipeline through the site - has (hopefully) been averted due to the efforts of LepSoc Africa's KZN branch. Steve Woodhall picked up on the proposed development and alerted KZN Nature Conservation (Adrian Armstrong and Jenny Longmore). LepSoc Africa, with input from Adrian (wearing his LSA hat), Steve, Kevin Cockburn and Simon Joubert have been talking to interested parties in an attempt to find an acceptable solution. Simon, a registered professional engineer with experience in similar civil infrastructure developments, has met with with the consulting engineering firm appointed for the design of the pipeline. As Simon pointed out, the effects of temporary and enabling works could potentially be more damaging to the butterfly's habitat than details of the final pipeline alignment. He has reviewed the relative merits of various alternative pipeline designs and is confident that a satisfactory outcome can be achieved. An update will follow in November's Newsletter... Aloeides Project (Jeremy Dobson) This is a new project, aimed at constructing an updated phylogeny (tree-of-life) of the Aloeides genus – the Dull Coppers. I think most of you would agree that this is often a confusing group and identification of species is often, at best, a guess. We intend to completely review the genus and will, hopefully, eventually resolve some of the tricky taxonomic issues. The project is a LepSoc Africa initiative and will be managed by members of the Society chosen for their scientific expertise, activeness in the field, or their geographic location. The first phase of this project is the creation of a high- resolution phylogeny for the Aloeides. We are not attempting taxonomic revisions within the genus at this stage, however once our phylogeny (evolutionary tree-of- life) has been completed it should provide a very solid base for further taxonomic work. We hope that all members of the Society will contribute to this project. The end product - an updated Aloeides phylogeny - will be published in Metamorphosis. Please contact me at [email protected] or +27 82 783 8213 if you have any queries, or wish to participate. Kedestes Conservation Ismat Adams, a former University of Cape Town student and now an employee of CapeNature, completed a dissertation for a Master of Science degree, titled: “Poised for extinction – unravelling habitat requirements of two endangered butterflies (Kedestes barberae bunta and Kedestes lenis lenis) in a biodiversity hotspot”. The work, for which Dave Edge is a supervisor, investigates the status of these two butterflies, assesses their ecology and Kedestes barberae bunta presents recommendations for their future conservation. Andrew Morton Proposed measures include habitat optimisation of existing sites, captive breeding to increase the populations at the existing sites, preparation of new sites for introduction, and establishment of the two species at the new sites. All of these activities will be conducted using sound scientific principles and knowledge of “best practice” applied elsewhere in the world. Historical Checklist from Gallo Manor (Simon van Noort) Simon van Noort, curator of Entomology at the Iziko Museum in Cape Town has submitted the following article. Some of you will notice that Precis antilope is included in the checklist; this was a solitary record however! I read Jeremy Dobson’s account of Leo Thamm’s record of Charaxes vansoni from Johannesburg in African Butterfly News 2017-4 with interest. I spent some of my youth growing up in Johannesburg where my folks built a house in a newly proclaimed suburb situated in what was then pristine Highveld Grassland, now completely transformed into suburbia. In 1976, as a 11 year old kid, I netted a female C. vansoni in Gallo Manor in the veld adjacent to our house, which then was one of only a couple of houses present on the north-facing Darker Commodore grassland slope. To say I was over the moon with excitement (Precis antilope) at the time is an understatement, given that this was my first hand-netted Charaxes, a feat which I only managed by pure luck and with a reflex swish of my net when she came hurtling towards me at high speed! Specimens from my personal collection were all incorporated into the Iziko South African Museum (SAMC) collection when I was appointed as an entomologist there in 1992 and hence the C. vansoni specimen is accessioned into SAMC, and was included in the SABCA assessment. The specimen is a bit worse for wear Van Son’s Emperor now (having lost her head somewhere along the way), but she (Charaxes vansoni) was already rather tatty, having damaged wings, when I netted her (picture above). It would be intriguing to conduct a follow up survey in the same area to assess the turnover of the butterfly species faunal assemblage as a gradual adaptation, over the last 40 years, to the complete transformation of the original grassland habitat into what is now a mini forest. No doubt some species will have disappeared from the area, but then other species may have colonised the new habitat, which now has a wide range Highveld Ranger of novel host plants on offer in the suburban gardens. (Kedestes nerva) Interrogating LepiMap for the quarter–degree square 2628AA revealed that over time 131 butterfly species have been recorded from this locus. My records (1975-1977) from a far more constrained locality within this quarter–degree square (Umgeni Crescent vicinity, 26° 3.901'S 28° 4.532'E, Gallo Manor) comprised 43 species collected in open grassland: Coeliades pisistratus, Kedestes nerva nerva, Spialia diomus ferax, Actizera lucida, Cacyreus marshalli, Eicochrysops messapus mahallakoaena, Lampides boeticus, Leptotes pirithous pirithous, Uranothauma nubifer nubifer, Axiocerses tjoane tjoane, Leptomyrina henningi henningi, Myrina silenus ficedula, Charaxes vansoni, Danaus chrysippus orientis, Acraea axina, Telchinia serena, Byblia anvatara acheloia, Byblia ilithyia, Catacroptera cloanthe cloanthe, Vanessa cardui, Hypolimnas misippus, Precis antilope, Precis archesia archesia, Junonia hierta cebrene, Junonia orithya madagascariensis, Papilio demodocus demodocus, Catopsilia florella, Colias electo electo, Eurema brigitta brigitta, Belenois aurota, Belenois creona severina, Belenois zochalia zochalia, Teracolus agoye agoye, Colotis antevippe gavisa, Colotis annae annae, Colotis euippe omphale, Colotis evagore antigone, Colotis evenina evenina, Teracolus subfasciatus, Mylothris agathina agathina, Mylothris rueppellii haemus, Pinacopteryx eriphia eriphia, Pontia helice helice. If I had also collected in the more diverse riverine associated vegetation along the nearby Braamfontein Spruit and Sands River this would have added a good number of further species to my list. Change is inevitable. I can only encourage all of you to get into the bush as often as possible, particularly into lesser explored areas, to document Africa’s fantastic biodiversity before habitat transformation completely overwhelms us. IN THE SHADOW OF THE RUWENZORIS Uganda – June 2017 (Mark Williams) For me I hoped that this trip to Uganda was to be the butterfly safari of a lifetime. I have always dreamt of swinging a net in a rainforest in the Congo Basin and now it was going to happen. The four members of the expedition were Harald (‘what the f was that!’) Selb, Jeremy (‘let me Google that’) Dobson, Raimund (‘it went boom’) Schutte and Mark (‘ants in the pants’) Williams. On the morning of 2 June 2017 we all met up at the Mugg & Bean at OR Tambo airport after checking our luggage in. While chatting about this and that it was discovered that I had packed no rain gear. My three companions, all seasoned rainforest visitors, were horrified. A quest to find a plastic poncho was launched and after drawing a blank at Camp & Climb Harald found one at the duty-free pharmacy, of all places (Harald is a genius when it comes to this sort of thing). The four hour plus flight to Entebbe, Uganda was uneventful. Jeremy slept for the duration while the rest of us amused ourselves by sharing bad jokes and butterfly images on our phones. We arrived as it was getting dark. Entebbe customs was organized and friendly, and smoothly negotiated. This was apart from Harald nearly losing one of his bags because it was taken to “lost property” while he got distracted trying to negotiate exchanging dollars for Uganda shillings at an unrealistic exchange rate. Harald had organized transport, accommodation and a 4x4 for us and we were soon loaded into a taxi and whisked off to the Colonial Guest House, our digs for the night.