JULY 2020 EDITION: ABN 2020 - 4 AFRICAN (NEWS FROM MAY AND JUNE) BUTTERFLY THE LEPIDOPTERISTS’ SOCIETY OF AFRICA NEWS LATEST NEWS Welcome to July’s newsletter! The lockdown continues… Despite the recent relaxation of some of the coronavirus restrictions, we – at least those of us who live in South Africa - missed the latter part of the 2019 – 2020 butterfly season. Nonetheless, news is still trickling in, both locally and from elsewhere on the continent. July’s edition contains 95 pages (although this is admittedly padded by the English Naming project – refer to FEATURES); thanks to everyone who has contributed. For interest, this is the 24th edition of the newsletter; four years of African Butterfly News! I’ve produced a graph (below), which indicates the newsletter’s growth from a modest 11 pages in September 1996 to the 80 to 90 page mark currently. Corrections Not one error was reported from May’s newsletter: Thanks Mark Williams and Steve Collins! 1 Books wanted Marijke de Kock is interested in second hand butterfly books: anything from the African Continent. Any of Torben Larsen's books would be a high priority. Please contact Marijke if you can help. [email protected] Books for sale Carolyn Butler has forwarded photos of some books (and a few set-butterflies) that belonged to her, now deceased, husband. Carolyn now lives in Cape Town, but spent many years in DRC/Congo where her husband collected a few butterflies. Most of the specimens went to museums, both in SA and in the USA. She has two large full-colour volumes of Butterflies of the World (in French) and nine large mounted butterflies. She would like to sell them, or at least find a place where the books and specimens would be appreciated. If anyone is interested, please contact Carolyne at [email protected] SALCA The IUCN are uploading the South African SALCA (and SABCA) conservation assessments onto the IUCN Red List website. For many of the SALCA authors this entailed another round of checks and corrections, but, thanks to Silvia Kirkman’s “encouragement” I think we have got through this! Membership Cards Membership cards for the 2020 – 2021 season have been produced and distributed to the various LepSoc Africa branch chairmen, who will circulate the cards by email. Laminated cards may be obtained from your respective branch chairman should you request this, but cards will not be posted except by prior agreement. If you wish, simply print out the page with your name on it, cut out your card and get it laminated. 2 The Lockdown Pictures continued… (Photos from South African gardens prior to 01 June) Anthene livida livida Myrina silenus ficedula Hypolimnas misippus Jan Praet Julio Balona Julio Balona Linden, Gauteng Gauteng Gauteng Axiocerses tjoane tjoane Charaxes brutus natalensis and Iolaus trimeni Stephen Ball Hypolimnas misippus. Stephen Ball Stephen Ball Magaliesberg, Gauteng Magaliesberg, Gauteng Magaliesberg, Gauteng Hypolimnas misippus Protogoniomorpha anacardii nebulosa Junonia terea elgiva Jeremy Dobson Steve Woodhall Alicia Culverwell Bryanston, Gauteng Gillitts, KZN Ballito, KZN Mylothris agathina agathina Precis archesia archesia Mylothris rueppellii haemus Elsje Vink Peter Sharland Lourens Erasmus Grahamstown, E Cape Risidale, Gauteng Muldersdrift, Gauteng 3 Highveld Butterfly Club Photographic Competition (Jeremy Dobson) Justin Bode and André Coetzer initiated a photographic competition, which Hermann Staude and I were asked to judge. The “competition” was for the best butterfly and moth photos submitted to the HBC WhatsApp chat group between 21 March (the start of the lockdown) and 17 May. This was the winner in the “Butterfly” category: an African Blue Pansy (Junonia orithya madagascariensis), photographed by Tim Gilbert at his house in Kyasands. Junonia orithya madagascariensis Tim Gilbert I like the picture, not just because it’s a great Gauteng image of a beautiful butterfly, but also because you can see the wall of Tim’s house in the background, which gives it great “Lockdown” credentials! While I was responsible for the Papilionoidea, Hermann Staude had the simple task of adjudicating entries for the remaining 95% of Lepidoptera – he chose this photo, which was submitted by Stephen Ball (the nephew of Jonathan) who recently joined LepSoc Africa and who lives in the Hartbeespoort area. This is the Cream-striped Owl (Cyligramma latona) a member of the Noctuidae family. Cyligramma latona Stephen Ball Hartbeespoort, Gauteng 4 Molecular phylogeny of Sterrhinae A multigene phylogenetic study of the Sterrhinae subfamily (Geometridae) was carried out by a team of researchers including LepSoc Africa members Pasi Sihvonen and Hermann Staude. The objective of the study was to test current morphology-based hypotheses on phylogeny with additional material included from further geographical areas and morphologically different lineages. The computer-generated phylogenetic trees support the hypothesis that Sterrhinae comprises two major lineages. Based on the molecular phylogeny and extensive morphological examination, a revised classification of the worldwide Sterrhinae fauna is presented, which includes about 3000 species, classified into nine tribes and 97 genera. The results highlight the compelling need to include more genera from a global perspective in molecular phylogenetic studies, in order to create a stable global classification for this subfamily. Sterrhinae The phylogenetic positions of Bhagadatta, Kumothales and Harmilla For a long time the subfamily Limenitidinae was used as a “trash can” taxon for taxa that could not easily be placed in other subfamilies of the butterfly family Nymphalidae. Recent molecular studies have defined the subfamily and the latest research has shown that the subfamily can be divided into seven strongly supported tribes. Dhungel & Wahlberg (2018) attempted to sample all genera within the Limenitidinae, but they were unable to sample the genera Kumothales, Harmilla, Euryphurana, Euryphaedra and Neurosigma. In this paper, a team of researchers, including Steve Collins, determine the phylogenetic positions of the genera Bhagadatta, Kumothales and Harmilla based on a multigene dataset. They have compared the new sequences with the dataset published by Dhungel and Wahlberg and revised the classification of Limenitidinae accordingly. Limenitidinae paper Butterfly armour Andre Coetzer posted the following article on the HBC WhatsApp Group Butterfly armour 5 Alan Gardiner’s garden… LepSoc Africa Limpopo branch chairman, Vaughan Jessnitz has set up a WhatsApp chat group for Limpopo Branch, similar to what André Coetzer has implemented for the Highveld branch. Alan Gardiner has posted a few photos on the site, including this amazing picture (bottom left) of a wasp - a Mud Dauber I think – successfully chasing away a vastly bigger female Boisduval's False Acraea (Pseudacraea boisduvalii trimenii) which was apparently messing with its lunch. If you happen to live in the lowveld (Alan lives in Kampersrus in Limpopo), the effects of the lockdown don’t appear to be nearly as bleak as they were in Johannesburg... Size doesn’t matter... Male Pseudacraea boisduvalii trimenii Hypolimnas anthedon wahlbergi Wasp successfully chasing away a female Alan Gardiner, Kampersrus, Limpopo communally roosting under the leaves of a Pseudacraea boisduvalii trimenii Dracaena plant. Alan Gardiner, Kampersrus, Limpopo Alan Gardiner, Kampersrus, Limpopo Butterfly Migration APP (Gerard Talevera) Gerard Talevera, a researcher at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology, Barcelona, has developed a “Butterfly Migration APP”, a phone application that has been built to help citizen scientists contribute to research on migratory butterflies. The APP incorporates learning information and the possibility to contribute data for 50 migratory species worldwide; it is focused on long-term monitoring and the observation of breeding occurrences, but also allows reports on large migratory movements, observations of territorial behaviour, transects, and random observations. http://www.butterflymigration.org/app.html Gerard hopes that you will be persuaded to get out and make your own contributions! Reports can be introduced retrospectively too. Hopefully, over the years, this tool will help to get a better understanding of the migrations of some of these butterflies and to engage many citizen scientists to get involved. Please help spread the voice! As Linnaeus once wrote: “... to resolve this intricate issue [migration], it is essential that many people in various places on Earth make careful observations and report them to the learned world" 6 Mothing trip to KwaZulu-Natal (Tony Kingston, Knud Larsen and Alexandre Cipolla) In mid-February, Knud Larsen from Denmark and Tony Kingston from the UK flew into Johannesburg together. We hired a Nissan X-Trail from Europcar in Johannesburg Airport and drove to Volksrust where we were booked to stay in a lovely place called Sunbird Cottage. As we were self-catering, we stopped in Standerton en route to buy some provisions. We made a quick tour of Pick n Pay, loaded our trolley high and headed back to the car to leave. We knew roughly where we’d parked, but we couldn’t find the car! We couldn’t even recall the colour – (we had collected it hurriedly from a very dimly-lit car park at the The view from the terrace of Sunbird Cottage airport and hadn’t taken too much notice of it as we had a long drive ahead of us.) We walked around for 10 minutes, getting more and more anxious about all our belongings and pressing