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Post by timmsyrj on Jul 4, 2013 12:56:37 GMT -8
Yes I suppose, they didn't have the literature we have nowadays and if it wasn't for those guys we wouldn't have it now but if Apollo was ever found here then Kent would be just behind Cornwall as the last place I'd look for it.
Rich
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Post by nomad on Jul 4, 2013 20:32:49 GMT -8
Yes I suppose, they didn't have the literature we have nowadays and if it wasn't for those guys we wouldn't have it now but if Apollo was ever found here then Kent would be just behind Cornwall as the last place I'd look for it. Rich Yes, I believe the Apollos in the U.K. were certainly introductions. Probably one of those released by persons unknown then caught by Tucker. Lets hope our fellow collector Tucker enjoyed the experience of capturing a Apollo and it made his day. I believe the specimen was figured in a Victorian book, anyone know which one.
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Post by Christof on Jul 6, 2013 4:05:02 GMT -8
To Scotland it takes also about 400km from the nearest population in Scandinavia, so impossible for apollo again. "It's not normally found below about 500 metres and the larvae need cold air temperatures" absolutely NOT. In Scandinavia hundreds of localities are near the see level at the elevation under 200 or even under 100. The whole Gottland is not higher than 50m and plenty of other Finish small islands...Also it is not true that larva need cold temperatures. It feeds only during hot and sunny days. The only thing why we think that apollo is a mountain butterfly is, that all lower elevation populations are long extinct... I don't agree. Parnassius larvae need cold air. Actually what they need is snow in winter. Of course this is the case for Scandinavia at sea level. If you go more south (lets say Turkey) this is not the case anymore, thus no parnassius at sea level. I am collecting them all my life and I am sure of that. Going into any mountains in the northern hemisphere it is always easy: at low altitude you don't need to look for them. Once you get higher up and see the 'winter sticks' (those long sticks they put in the ground along the roads so you can find the road in winter when everything is covered under the snow) along the roads, you can start to looking. No biotope without snow in winter (and I mean for an extended time) has any parnassius. Of course that does not mean that any biotope with snow has parnassius (i.e. no apollo in Great Britain or Morocco for example)
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Post by nomad on Nov 6, 2013 6:19:51 GMT -8
homard > Yes a hot topic, as to whether or not Parnassius apollo ever made it by its own steam into Britain. Dover seems the right place for it, if it ever did migrate here, but you have to remember the 'fraudsters ' known as the Kentish Buccaneers were very active in Kent during this Period. They would send a urgent message to a well known collector that a very rare migrant had been seen, which would bring the unsuspecting individual scurrying down to catch the rare specimen, that was then released at the right moment. The collector would have a ' red letter day ' and the buccaneer would be well rewarded for his trouble. The collector would take the prized possession home to adorn his cabinet, which would give many years of enjoyment and he would proudly show off the prize to his visiting entomological friends.
There is a good account of a capture of P. apollo from around the same time by a unknown collector. There is a good probability that this account given to the botanist George Wollaston who then wrote to the editor of the Zoologist was given by Tucker. The specimen shown here was captured by Tucker in 1846 or was it, if this account was by Tucker then he seems rather vague about his dates, see below.
" As you wish for more particulars about the capture of Parnassius, I have been to-day to see the person who took it, and hear from his own lips all about it. He was lying on the cliffs at Dover, in the end of August or in the beginning of September, 1847 or 1848 [ he cannot remember which ], when the butterfly settled close to him, and not having his nets with him, he captured it by putting his hat over it; and then carried it to his lodgings and shut the window and door, and let it go in the room and secured it. He had not the slightest idea what it wast till he saw it figured in some work afterwards. The insect has all the appearance of having been taken as he describes; and has has no object to deceive, and is a person in whom I can place implicit confidence, I have no doubt, in my own mind, that the specimen is a British one. It will probably be in my own collection before this letter reaches you, when I shall be most happy to show it to you at any time you are this way".
It is noticeable from this account that Wollaston was eager to obtain it and the collector was eager to sell it for what must have been a good price.
Edward Newman who received the Wollaston letter, when it was published, added that Wollaston was a botanist of high standing and was most scrupulous in his accuracy, but also added that " I am quite unacquainted with Mr Wollaston's informant, with whom the onus probandi now appears to rest"
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Post by smallcopper on Nov 6, 2013 7:02:54 GMT -8
Haha, I love how often the Victorian collectors allude to capturing special specimens when encountered unexpectedly (and they without their net) by putting their hat over it!
Having tried this method myself on odd occasions those circumstances have presented themselves (okay, an occasional aberration rather than a P.apollo!) I can testify it's a decidedly chancy way to capture something. I think I'd rather take my chances with a slow approach and a quick 'snap' together of thumb and forefinger.
Of course the specimen's a fake in this instance; but because of its history (the Kentish Buccaneers) it is, IMHO, of considerable historic interest as a curio in its own right. Well worthy of cabinet space in its curious way. I wonder if our descendents will say the same in 150 years of those bleached and chemically created 'aberrations' that keep cropping up on Ebay?
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Post by homard on Nov 6, 2013 8:36:46 GMT -8
homard > Yes a hot topic, as to whether or not Parnassius apollo ever made it by its own steam into Britain. Dover seems the right place for it, if it ever did migrate here, but you have to remember the 'fraudsters ' known as the Kentish Buccaneers were very active in Kent during this Period. They would send a urgent message to a well known collector that a very rare migrant had been seen, which would bring the unsuspecting individual scurrying down to catch the rare specimen, that was then released at the right moment. nomad, Wow, what do you say?! Kentish Buccaneers? It was a whole group of fraudsters at those distant times? I have no words!
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