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Post by homard on Mar 7, 2011 4:43:13 GMT -8
After the Juha's post with one of the most rare Colias (C. erschoffi I mean), I'd like to show two the most unusual (IMHO) species of the genus. First is C. christophi with the amazing brown coloration, second is C. wiskotti with the broadest black marginal band in the genus - almost half of the wing' space in males of the nominotypical ssp.! Left 3 columns - C.sieversi, right 3 columns - C. christophi  Leftmost column - C. marcopolo, next four columns - several sspp. of C. wiskotti (with the lonely female of C. regia at the bottom center  ), two the rightmost columns - C. draconis (or C. wiskotti draconis, depends of POV )  |
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jaume
Full Member
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Post by jaume on Mar 7, 2011 5:47:44 GMT -8
Nice series of sieversi and draconis. Colias is one of my favourite generas after papilio and prepona.
JAUME
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2011 5:51:26 GMT -8
Colias wiscotti is my favourite of this genus, stunning colours.
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Post by rayrard on Mar 7, 2011 5:57:49 GMT -8
Nice specimens! I am a Colias fan myself but only have 2 species in my area of the U.S. I have bought a few boreal Canada forms (C. tyche, C. nastes, C. interior) and caught a few out west (C. alexandra, C. scudderi).
I love the fiery red Colias like your C. draconis and the C. regia. I really want to get C. meadi from the western US. The undersides have a cool contrast with the uppersides.
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Post by boghaunter1 on Mar 7, 2011 9:04:46 GMT -8
Homard, Great stuff! Welcome to the forum! Did you collect these yourself? Please post more Colias... John K. |
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Post by jrlaiho on Mar 7, 2011 21:39:07 GMT -8
It is always a joy to look at Colias specimens C. christophi is one of my favourites and it is a nice species to collect. It flies slowly, so it is easy to catch! My absolute favourite is boothii (attached photo). Not perhaps so much because of what it looks like, but mystery of what it really is. Attachments:
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Post by wollastoni on Mar 8, 2011 0:32:37 GMT -8
Very nice !
Can you tell us more about boothii Juha ? Which mystery ?
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Post by jrlaiho on Mar 8, 2011 2:38:19 GMT -8
Previously, I suspect mainly because of limited material available, boothii was considered an occasional hybrid between hecla and nastes (before the Siberian tyche became familiar to NA lepidopterists). Now we know that this is not the case, as you can collect hundred specimens in one locality. The modern view is that it is a subspecies of tyche and we have good reasons to think so. Tyche from northern Europe and Asia is similar to boothii, only that the ground colour of boothii is yellow (orange), while it is green/grey in tyche. Although there are boothii-like forms among tyche thula in Alaska, the main distribution is NWT/Nunavut. This area was covered by ice still some 10 000 years ago. Obviously boothii invaded Nunavut from somewhere else. If we assume it is related to tyche (including thula) and also if you look at its distribution it is logical to conclude that it arrived from ice free Beringia (Alaska). The question is why did it turn orange in such a short time? Or did just some of the occasional boothii-like forms, occuping ice free Beringia, happened to be those that expanded east to boothii territory. Perhaps, but… Boothii is not a hybrid between hecla and nastes, but this idea may not bee completely wrong. Did tyche meet with an orange relative as the ice melted, resulting in offspring carrying an “orange gene”. This may sound like fantasies, but although evolution can work fast, I think less than 10 000 years is not the most logical explanation for developing a new colour form. The true story may, of course, be something completely different, but nevertheless boothii surely has an interesting history.
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Post by nomihoudai on Mar 8, 2011 3:19:32 GMT -8
Juha I think 10000 years is more than enough for a new colorform, this is about 10000 generations ! Furthermore goldfishes and dogs are domesticated for much less time and look what humanity had been able to do by selective breeding.
Edit: Furthermore Colias is likely to produce new colors, jsut look at all the femal colorforms in the different species
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Post by bobw on Mar 8, 2011 3:28:28 GMT -8
A colleague and I have done a huge amount of research into the five groups of Colias of Beringian origin. Unfortunately I'm not in a position to divulge our conclusions here as the book is close to going for publication and the publishers would not be happy. However, what Juha says is not too far away from our ideas, although we think that the history of boothii is probably older.
One thing that is clear is that neither boothii nor thula are the result of hybridisation between hecla and nastes, and they are clearly representatives of the tyche complex.
Bob
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Post by homard on Mar 8, 2011 5:15:56 GMT -8
Dear friends, Thanks for all the compliments about my specimens! rayrard: IMO, C. meadii is quite a common thing in Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. I have a plenty of specimens from there in collection. If you cannot go there personally, there are a lot of very friendly pipl in CO., with whom you could exchange specimens. boghaunter1: John, thanks for welkome words! Actually, I'm 'residing' here on InsectNet for many years, but never posted on Forum You know, the most funny thing about those two drawers that personally I collected the single specimen! It's a female C. wiskotti leucotheme. Though I have visited a locality in Trans-Alai mt. range twice, at those times my main objective were some Parnassius flying there. Unfortunately, I did not find C. regia at all!  (there is its type locality AFAIR). Only C. cocandica and C. eogene were more or less common near our base camp, and C. staudingeri was relatively common at some very restricted spot. Though the most interesting (IMHO) Colias from there is the local form of C. 'hyale'! It is very rare, and has an uncertain taxonomic status AFAIR. Perhaps BobW will enlighten us about the present situation (if it is not an unbublished info from the forthcoming book, of course). jrlaiho: Hello Juha! Great specimens you're showing to us!!! Envy a little I have neither C. erschoffi nor C. boothii. As to the status of C. boothii I doubt it's a ssp. of C. tyche. I collected C. tyche everywhere through the huge territory of its areal here in Russia - from Altai Mts. to Chukotka. I have collected perhaps a thouthand of specimens through many years. Never I seen a single specimen with the orange coloration! My bet is C. boothii is a separate species though very close relative to C. tyche. BTW, in C. cocandica exists a form with the orange coloration - I've caught the single specimen in Trans-Alai. bobw: Me too is on the position to think that neither boothii nor thula are the result of hybridisation between hecla and nastes, because these species belong to the two quite different species groups. I wish you good luck with your research and publication of book! From the correspondence with your friend David H. I learned it should be a really monumental scientific volume (unlike the recent one of 'you know whom' ). Best regards, Alexei |
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Post by rayrard on Mar 8, 2011 6:17:28 GMT -8
rayrard: IMO, C. meadii is quite a common thing in Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. I have a plenty of specimens from there in collection. If you cannot go there personally, there are a lot of very friendly pipl in CO., with whom you could exchange specimens. Alexei I'm hoping to get out there again to try for it myself. Nothing beats netting something personally (although some of the few bought specimens I have are Colias). It is tempting sometimes when I see them on EBay Would you be able to post some pics of your C. meadi? Do you have C. scudderi as well? I have one specimen that I'm pretty sure is scudderi, mainly because it was a fresh specimen with wide black borders, and I caught worn C. philodice and fresh C. alexandra in the same meadow. |
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Post by bobw on Mar 8, 2011 7:36:30 GMT -8
Alexei
Have we corresponded? I'm not sure who you are but I thought I probably knew all the people with whom David has been in touch.
I travelled to Kyrgyzstan to collect for 5 consecutive years and caught all 11 known Colias (and most of the Parnassius). C. regia was local but common enough in the Transalai and at Sary Dzhaz.
When you mention the local form of C. hyale I assume you mean C. alta. For many years it was confused with C. erate but, as Staudinger recognised, it is clearly part of the hyale complex. For the moment we maintain it as a separate high-altitude species as the differences from hyale are quite significant, although they are not sympatric. It's strongholds seem to be in the Alai and Transalai where it can be quite common, but it also ranges up to the Baidulla range. C. h. grieshuberi (=hyale) is also found in Kyrgyzstan, but at low altitudes to the north of Issyk-Kul.
I too caught some orangeish C. cocandica in the Alai, they're not especially rare and are just individual forms - almost certainly not as a result of hybridisation with eogene as has been suggested. this is in complete contrast to boothii which in their pure form along the west coast of the Hudson Bay are always orange. To the west they have begun mto merge with thula producing a very unstable phenotype. I would consider boothii to be a "semispecies" in the tyche complex.
Bob
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Post by jrlaiho on Mar 8, 2011 7:59:03 GMT -8
There are many examples of fast evolution (eg. the classical Drosophilas), so a new form in 10000 years is by no mean impossible. But, in case of boothii I would still propose an optional explanation. It was interesting to read that Bob’s ideas are not too far from mine. Alexei, you are right that there are no yellow/orange forms in tyche. This is one of the several reasons to propose that boothii has “picked up” the “yellow gene” from a yellow/orange close relative. The fact that there are different colour forms in many Colias (eg. orange and white females) is a different matter. This feature is obviously inherited from a common ancestor, rather than a feature that has evolved separately in every species. Tyche lack this two-form-feature. Even if there are no yellow/orange tyche, I have no problems considering boothii belonging to this species. There are (although apparently rare) forms flying with boothii that are not yellow, but very similar to tyche from eg. Chukotka. Another interesting thing. Attached is a photo of a hybrid between tyche and an orange Colias, namely hecla, from Europe. It is without a doubt similar to boothii. Attachments:
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Post by bobw on Mar 8, 2011 10:03:16 GMT -8
Juha
Why do you say that the specimen you picture is a hybrid between werdandi and sulitelma? That is certainly one possible explanation but I would say that it could also be an aberration of werdandi. The solid-bordered forms aren't uncommon in werdandi and the orange form christiernssoni whilst not common does occur regularly (so there are orange forms in tyche). Interestingly, your specimen is almost identical to some of the thula I've caught in Alaska. It would appear that thula is very closely related to kolosovae from the far eastern part of Chukotka.
Bob
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), two the rightmost columns - C. draconis (or C. wiskotti draconis, depends of POV 
(there is its type locality AFAIR). Only C. cocandica and C. eogene were more or less common near our base camp, and C. staudingeri was relatively common at some very restricted spot. Though the most interesting (IMHO) Colias from there is the local form of C. 'hyale'! It is very rare, and has an uncertain taxonomic status AFAIR. Perhaps BobW will enlighten us about the present situation (if it is not an unbublished info from the forthcoming book, of course).