|
|
Post by trehopr1 on Jun 2, 2021 10:29:07 GMT -8
Through the kindness of a fellow member I was able to secure a small series of this beautiful heliconiid species from Belize. Would anyone have any suggestions as to species ? Do I have two species here ? These butterflies as a group are difficult for me to tell apart using what books I have available to me.  |
|
|
|
|
|
Post by jshuey on Jun 2, 2021 11:18:23 GMT -8
Heliconius hecale zuleika. Rare in nature in Belize, but Jan Meerman figured out how to rear it several years ago when he owned Green Hills Butterfly Farm. Passion vines he loved - and he managed to rear many of the rare heliconiids at the farm
John
|
|
|
|
Post by joachim on Jun 3, 2021 8:34:50 GMT -8
Very beautiful, thanks for posting
|
|
|
|
Post by trehopr1 on Jun 3, 2021 9:39:22 GMT -8
Thank you very much John for identifying this beautiful heliconiid for me !
Apparently, these are still being bred at the Green hills butterfly farm; as that location is on the associated data. All from January 2021.
I have three others as well which are similar in appearance to the top two; I just wanted to show the two varieties which I received in case they were distinct from each other.
|
|
|
|
Post by jshuey on Jun 4, 2021 5:05:44 GMT -8
I just looked through our Belize records for this species - and most of the "wild" records are from Green Hills whereas the few times I saw it were in the south (Toledo and southern Cayo District. I'm guessing that once Jan transplanted the hostplant into his 80 acre forested home site, that the butterfly found them and became established. Jan had most of the species of passion vines known from Belize growing at his place! The same thing happened with Eumaeus childrenae. Jan got the unusual cicad hostplant going in his forest, and the butterfly started to show up intermittently. Again - this was otherwise only seen regularly in forests to the south. But not that regularly!
Off topic - I am in the final stages of cleaning the Belize data set. I somehow scrambled the collection dates on select portions of the data, and am working back through a QA/QC process on the data. Over 31,500 individual records (a record can be more than one specimen on a given date and site) representing ~1,050 species. Note that I have never figured out what to do with some old literature records of species that could occur in Belize, but their habitat does not occur there - mostly big-pretty bugs from higher altitudes or cloud forest. Papilio polyxenes for example - often common in open habitats at 2,500m + in Chiapas and Guatemala - but Belize only hits the 1,100m mark!
John
|
|
|
|
Post by exoticimports on Jun 4, 2021 10:32:44 GMT -8
I have never figured out what to do with some old literature records of species that could occur in Belize, but their habitat does not occur there - mostly big-pretty bugs from higher altitudes or cloud forest. Papilio polyxenes for example - often common in open habitats at 2,500m + in Chiapas and Guatemala - but Belize only hits the 1,100m mark! John John, I'm not following. Let me try. Polyxenes occurs above 2500m in other areas, but since Belize only hits 1100m, polyxenes does not occur there. Since it "could" occur there, but the habitat does not, presumably there ARE no old literature records? I'm thinking data points; maybe you refer to geographic distribution maps, which I find to be largely useless. I certainly wouldn't include any gross-scale map "data", only observation records. ?? Chuck |
|
|
|
|
|
Post by jshuey on Jun 4, 2021 12:43:45 GMT -8
I have never figured out what to do with some old literature records of species that could occur in Belize, but their habitat does not occur there - mostly big-pretty bugs from higher altitudes or cloud forest. Papilio polyxenes for example - often common in open habitats at 2,500m + in Chiapas and Guatemala - but Belize only hits the 1,100m mark! John John, I'm not following. Let me try. Polyxenes occurs above 2500m in other areas, but since Belize only hits 1100m, polyxenes does not occur there. Since it "could" occur there, but the habitat does not, presumably there ARE no old literature records? I'm thinking data points; maybe you refer to geographic distribution maps, which I find to be largely useless. I certainly wouldn't include any gross-scale map "data", only observation records. ?? Chuck There are a handful of bugs reported from old literature that have no voucher specimens. The Papilio polyxenes is one example - reported by Godman and Salvin. I consider this to be as valid as you can get - given the authorship. Nearest likely habitat is ~150 miles away in Mexico or Guatemala. It was a stray that was never seen again in Belize. Tyler and Brown list Papilio garamas from Belize without comment - another high-altitude species that could be there as a stray - but do you include this just because they said this occurs there. It's a conspicuous bug - if it is around, someone would have seen it. Habitat is probably closer - more like 50 miles to the south. And then there is the Anetia thirza sight record from lowland forest in Cayo. This is a cloud forest species - and the nearest habitat is at least 100 miles from where it was sighted. But it's a sighting Jan Merman made - so I'm inclined to accept it. But then again, Jan miss identifies plenty of bugs that he has in hand - so do you trust a sight record?? Bottom line is that there are shades of gray in the total species list - about 10 species make me a little nervous. I personally like to have a dead bug right in front of me to confirm the ID (and just as importantly, so someone can come and and correct my screw-ups later). j |
|
|
|
Post by exoticimports on Jun 4, 2021 13:14:13 GMT -8
Dang John, I understand and point well made!!!!
|
|
|
|
Post by wingedwishes on Jun 10, 2021 16:48:03 GMT -8
Eumaeus childrenae Is still at Green Hills. Caught 5 of them 3 days ago. All in areas with cycads.
|
|
|
|
Post by wingedwishes on Jun 10, 2021 16:57:14 GMT -8
The Anetia thorax is not in the physical collection he left with Robin Greaves. When I get the photos of the collection uploaded you must remember that they are in a state of restoration and so I think you will nearly cry at the photos.
|
|
