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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2013 10:26:56 GMT -8
thanks Peter.
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Post by timmsyrj on Apr 28, 2013 2:10:26 GMT -8
"Today there are 440 recognized European species!" Matt Rowlings excellent website does list 440 species but lists North African species.
Rich
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Post by nomad on Apr 28, 2013 2:59:08 GMT -8
"Today there are 440 recognized European species!" Matt Rowlings excellent website does list 440 species but lists North African species. Rich Very true. Even the 1983 Collins: The Butterflies of Britain and Europe by Lionel Higgins included the area north of the Sahara, probably because the butterflies resembled those of Europe and many of the species that flew in that region also occurred in Europe. The Collins book mentions that " Our area is bounded in the north and west by the oceans, in the south by the Sahara Desert, and in the east by the Bosphorus, Dardanelles and Russia [USSR]. If you wish to exclude those butterflies that only occur in North Africa which are usually endemic to the high Atlas mountains the number of European butterflies would certainly be smaller. On a different note, I wonder if many private collections have all the European butterflies including those of the high Atlas. A collection with all the recognized subspecies would be a very great collection indeed and then there are all the geographical forms. It seems most of the Authors of the current European butterfly books include those butterflies which occur north of the Sahara in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. It would be interesting to know what other members think! Peter. |
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Post by nomihoudai on Apr 28, 2013 3:42:40 GMT -8
Christopher Jonko lists the following at lepidoptera.pl:
Hesperiidae 46
Lycaenidae 131
Nymphalidae 245
Papilionidae 13
Pieridae 56
Riodinidae 1
This gives a total of 492 species. Fauna Europaea gives similar numbers, 531 including subspecies. As far as I have seen there is no Northern African states in these numbers but many species listed occur on the Canary islands and each of the islands has it's own name (like genus Hipparchia and Gonepteryx).
I guess that there is a few people on here that have more or less every (+-10) single species of European butterfly, it is not that hard given the high number of collectors and good infrastructure for travels. Also there is not a single species that I know of that gets sold for a 4-digit sum so you could actually just buy all of them with a manageable sum of money.
There is no problem about adding Northern Africa to the list. When you write something you want to make it persistent, so the best step is to bound your area of interest with borders that have the least fluctuations of species. The Sahara, Ocean and the vast plains of Russia are good boundaries that will have little influx of species.
The book by Higgins is missing at least one species, Cacyreus marshalli which only became an European fauna element after the book got published.
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Post by bobw on Apr 28, 2013 7:44:10 GMT -8
The generally accepted biogeographical boundaries of Europe are the Atlantic ocean to the west (but including Atlantic islands such as the Canaries, Madeira and the Azores); the Atlas mountains to the south and the Urals and Caucasus to the east. Only the European part of Turkey is included.
Just studying the butterfly fauna it's tempting to include the whole of Turkey and the Caucasus and most of Iran in this as most of the species are pretty much the same.
Bob
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Post by miguel on Apr 28, 2013 12:37:10 GMT -8
There are various species of butterflies of the north of Africa that are arriving to the south part of Europe(Colotis evagore,Elphinstonia charlonia ...)in the last decades and that´s the reason why I think is good to know what species of butterflies are living in Morocco,Tunicia or Algeria.
Miguel
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Post by Deleted on Apr 28, 2013 12:38:10 GMT -8
"I guess that there is a few people on here that have more or less every (+-10) single species of European butterfly, it is not that hard given the high number of collectors and good infrastructure for travels"
that is true Claude, the ones I found hardest to get were Polyommatus humedasae, Polyommatus menelaos and Lysandra philippi, humedasae being the most expensive but compared to some exotic rarities these cost a modest sum.
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