New Biology Section

[Pete Eeles]

Hi all,

Over the next 6 months (this is going to take some time!), and with the help of the UK team (Guy, Piers, Gary) and, of course, all members - I intend to launch a new section on the website dedicated to "Butterfly Biology". It will cover all manner of topic - from anatomy to taxonomy to parasitism to behaviour etc. etc. The purpose of this post is to get some feedback on the relevant literature. I have stacks of books on identification (whether this is country-specific guides or variations or whatever), but very little on biology. However, I've tried to summarise what I do intend on reading in preparation for this new aspect of the website. If there are any gaping holes, I'd appreciate knowing of them! Here goes (listed in chronological order, with title, subtitle, author, year, publisher listed):

Butterflies
E.B.Ford
1945
Collins

Moths
E.B.Ford
1955
Collins

The British Butterflies
Their Origin and Establishment
Roger L.H.Dennis
1977
Classey

The Biology of Butterflies
R.I.Vane-Wright and P.R.Ackery (eds.)
1989
Princeton University Press

The Ecology of Butterflies in Britain
Roger L.H.Dennis (ed.)
1992
Oxford University Press

Ecology and Conservation of Butterflies
Andrew S. Pullin
1995
Chapman and Hall

Butterflies
Dick Vane-Wright
2003
The Natural History Museum

Studies on the Ecology and Conservation of Butterflies in Europe
Vol. 1: Concepts and Case Studies
Elisabeth Kuhn, Reinart Feldmann, Jeremy Thomas and Josef Settele (eds.)
2005
Pensoft

Studies on the Ecology and Conservation of Butterflies in Europe
Vol. 2: Species Ecology along a European Gradient: Maculinea Butterflies as a Model
Josef Settele, Elisabeth Kuhn and Jeremy Thomas (eds.)
2005
Pensoft

Ecology of Butterflies in Europe
Josef Settele, Tim Shreeve, Martin Konvicka and Hans Van Dyck (eds.)
2009
Cambridge University Press

A Resource-Based Habitat View for Conservation Butterflies in the British Landscape
Roger L.H.Dennis
2010
Wiley-Blackwell

Cheers,

- Pete

[lee3764]

Excellent Pete! This is a very underrated subject that many people including myself would benefit from learning. Your first mentioned book 'Butterflies - E.B.Ford - 1945 - Collins New Naturalist no:1' is a brilliant book which I unfortunately never read all of as the genetics/biology & other complicated material (it certainly was when I had the book when I was 8 years old!) were too complicated for me to understand as a child. I would often raise Small Tortoishell & Large White caterpillars in the early 1970's and wonder how these wriggly things would cast off their skin & turn into a case of goo that in a couple of weeks would end up turning into a beautiful butterfly that a couple of hours after bursting it's pupal case would have hardened & dried its wings & flew up into the sky to its new found freedom. Fortunately this book can be obtained for under £5 if you don't want a dustjacket or a first edition. Don't buy the very inferior Bloomsbury edition from 1989/90 as it's all in Black & White as is the 1977 reprint of the original. Professor E.B.Ford was brilliant at genetics/biology & ecology of butterflies AND moths. I believe he was born in 1901 and died aged 87 in 1988. He never married apparently either. Warning though! for those who disagree with pinning specimens in this day & age, it has many plates in colour from his own, the Hope department of entomology & J.C.Dale collections of pinned specimens of British Butterflies which are reproduced in excellent colour & quality for a book produced in the 1940's. A very fine book indeed where much could be learnt from even today.
Best of luck with furthering this important part of the study of butterflies. I shall keep a regular eye on this section Pete.
Cheers,
Lee (Cornwall).

[Crispin]

Excellent!
This could be a really fascinating section and could inspire valuable thoughts and potential research.

One book I would add to your list would be:
Frowhawk. F.W. (1934) The Complete Book of. British Butterflies. Ward Lock, London

My father has a copy and I am always amazed at Frowhawks careful observations, descriptions of each species lifecycle, behaviour and habitat requirements. And how he gathered all the information from so many others back when it was published.

Crispin

[Pete Eeles]

'Butterflies - E.B.Ford - 1945 - Collins New Naturalist no:1' is a brilliant book

I couldn't agree more! I've read the first chapter (for about the 10th time) and already have great material for when each of our species was first documented. I'm now correlating that with "The Butterflies of Great Britain and Ireland" (Emmet and Heath) and "British Butterflies - a History in Books" (Dunbar). I've decided to create a timeline showing exactly when each species was first described, since I've never seen this visualised myself before, but would love to!

Cheers,

- Pete

[Pete Eeles]

This could be a really fascinating section and could inspire valuable thoughts and potential research.

That's a great thought, Crispin. We had Dick Vane-Wright present at the Hants and IOW AGM last year and he asked very provocative questions - such as why do some larvae eat their old skins and others not? Why do certain skippers have sharply-tipped antennae - is it to allow females to "unhook" the folds on the forewings of the male to access the androconial scales? etc. etc. But certainly providing a list of "unanswered questions" with each section would be a great idea to encourage more field observation!

One book I would add to your list would be: Frowhawk. F.W. (1934) The Complete Book of. British Butterflies. Ward Lock, London

Good point, since I certainly want to exemplify phenomena using British species wherever possible!

Cheers,

- Pete

[Lee Hurrell]

Hi Pete,

Good idea. Anything that betters our knowledge is a great thing.

I would suggest The Aurelian by Moses Harris. Although first published in 1766, I understand he was also a breeder and it should be interesting if possible to compare thoughts and observations from centuries ago to today.

I also have a E.B. Ford's Butterflies, a great book!

Cheers

Lee

[Pete Eeles]

First article done - and nothing to do with biology! But re-reading Ford gave me an inventive to update his first chapter

The result is here:

http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/reports_history.php

All comments welcome - I still need to re-read it myself! It did take quite a while to correlate the information - as well as sift through megabytes of information from the Internet. It's amazing that you can download a lot of the publications mentioned in their entirety off the Internet. I think my "bookshelf" has doubled in size over the last week!

Cheers,

- Pete

[lee3764]

First article done - and nothing to do with biology! But re-reading Ford gave me an inventive to update his first chapter

The result is here:

http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/reports_history.php

All comments welcome - I still need to re-read it myself! It did take quite a while to correlate the information - as well as sift through megabytes of information from the Internet. It's amazing that you can download a lot of the publications mentioned in their entirety off the Internet. I think my "bookshelf" has doubled in size over the last week!

Cheers,

- Pete

Good work Pete but the pasted bit below for the Geranium Bronze should I believe be 1997 instead of 1977 I think?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"1977 A Geranium Bronze is seen flying around Geraniums in a garden on 21st September in Kingston, Lewes, East Sussex, by John Holloway. Immature stages were subsequently found that gave rise to another generation. It is believed that this butterfly was accidentally imported as immature stages in Geranium plants. A full description of these records can be found on the UK Butterflies website." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I believe that the 1st specimen seen in U.K. was on 21st September, 1997 by Crispen Holloway's father John who saw a specimen in his garden in Lewes, East Sussex. They then saw it egg laying on potted Geraniums & 2 days later on saw a second specimen in their garden which also laid eggs too! Eventually several more were seen with the latest being seen on 1st November, 1997 flying with a late flying Small Copper. One further specimen was recorded by them in May 1998 which was probably the offspring from the original previous Autumn's adults and had probably fed on overwintered Pelagoniums in a neighbour's greenhouse. It is a native of South Africa and was not recorded in Europe until 1987 when a specimen was recorded in Majorca. Hope this helps Pete.
Cheers,
Lee (Cornwall).

[Pete Eeles]

Yep - my mistake! All fixed.

Cheers,

- Pete

[Michaeljf]

Pete,

Wow! That's a lot of research work - well done. I'll have a proper look over the next couple of days. Very interesting, and lovely use of Artwork from many sources as well.

Michael

[Pete Eeles]

Pete,

Wow! That's a lot of research work - well done. I'll have a proper look over the next couple of days. Very interesting, and lovely use of Artwork from many sources as well.

Michael

Thanks Michael - it sure was a hard slog, cross-referencing so many different sources and then going off to the 'Net to try and find some publicly-accessible material I could use. But hopefully worth it in the end. I certainly learned one hell of a lot reading the old classics! There really are some beautiful books now freely available via the references I provided at the start (e.g. Google Books).

Cheers,

- Pete

[Jack Harrison]

Do you mean Bibliography and not Biology? The suggested list includes books that are certainly not specifically biological in content.

Jack

[Pete Eeles]

Do you mean Bibliography and not Biology? The suggested list includes books that are certainly not specifically biological in content.

Jack

No - I meant biology. From Wikipedia:

"Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy"

I think that sums it up

Cheers,

- Pete

[Pete Eeles]

Managed to find the list I've been keeping. Candidate topics for the Biology section are:

Anatomy
Courtship and Mating
Defences and Predation
Dispersal and Migration
Ecology
Establishment
Habitats
Life Cycle
Nutrition
Parasitism and Symbiosis
Taxonomy
Variation

Cheers,

- Pete

[Jack Harrison]

Yes I knew that definition of biology but so far there seems to be solely a list of books, hence my interpretation of the thread as being bibliographical. A biology section would have to include (eg you tube) videos, photos of behaviour, etc. Compiling a list of such non-book references will be a huge challenge.

Jack

[Pete Eeles]

Hi Jack,

The reason for mentioning the books is not to list them, but to read them in preparation for any articles that then get produced.

But I agree that any such articles should be illustrated appropriately using drawings, photos, videos, sound clips etc.

And I like a challenge

Cheers,

- Pete

[Lee Hurrell]

Good work Pete, that looks very interesting! Almost a book in its own right

Cheers

Lee

[Gibster]

Hi Pete,

that's a great piece of work, I very much enjoyed watching the timeline of events unfold. But I'm a real b*gger for detail. So... (gulp, am I allowed to question the site owner?)


1912 - Stymonds Yat should read Symonds Yat.

1932 - re the Tiger Swallowtail record, "It is believed to have been accidentally imported from North America." A quick websearch gave me this: "The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail is seen from May to September in the northern portion of its range, from April to October in the middle portion, and from February to November in the southern portion.There are two broods in the north, and three in the south" My question is this; could the 1932 record be of a genuine transatlantic vagrant? I know this is the wrong place to pose the question, but the given locality and time of year seem absolutely ideal. Are there records to indicate what the weather conditions were back in late September 1932? Were there any Monarchs or American landbirds found in Britain at the same time? Admitedly I don't have a clue as to whether the species is a known migrant or if it was bred in captivity in the 1930s.

1973 - Indian Red Admiral - I've seen plenty on Tenerife, which is an awful lot closer to the UK than NW India!

c2003 - Jim Porter caught a Lemon Pansy by hand as it flew over his head whilst he was out shopping...he promptly popped it into an almost empty fag packet for safe keeping until he got home. And that's the absolute truth (unless he was having me on...hmmm ) I remember him telling me it was the first "wild" Lemon Pansy record for Britain. Sorry, I'm really not sure of the year. Possibly pre-2000?

All the very best,

Gibster.

[Pete Eeles]

Thanks for the comments Gibster - did you ever post your obsoleta Small Copper?

am I allowed to question the site owner?)

Of course

1912 - Stymonds Yat should read Symonds Yat.

Thx - will fix.

1932 - re the Tiger Swallowtail record, "It is believed to have been accidentally imported from North America." A quick websearch gave me this: "The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail is seen from May to September in the northern portion of its range, from April to October in the middle portion, and from February to November in the southern portion.There are two broods in the north, and three in the south" My question is this; could the 1932 record be of a genuine transatlantic vagrant? I know this is the wrong place to pose the question, but the given locality and time of year seem absolutely ideal. Are there records to indicate what the weather conditions were back in late September 1932? Were there any Monarchs or American landbirds found in Britain at the same time? Admitedly I don't have a clue as to whether the species is a known migrant or if it was bred in captivity in the 1930s.

Pass.

1973 - Indian Red Admiral - I've seen plenty on Tenerife, which is an awful lot closer to the UK than NW India!

The individuals in the Canaries are now considered a separate species - Vanessa vulcania, not Vanessa indica.

c2003 - Jim Porter caught a Lemon Pansy by hand as it flew over his head whilst he was out shopping...he promptly popped it into an almost empty fag packet for safe keeping until he got home. And that's the absolute truth (unless he was having me on...hmmm ) I remember him telling me it was the first "wild" Lemon Pansy record for Britain. Sorry, I'm really not sure of the year. Possibly pre-2000?

I don't doubt that - but with the number of butterfly houses and captive breeders accidentally releasing stock, I doubt we'll ever add another "doubtful" migrant to the list - I saw a Malachite in Stratford-upon-Avon this year, in the same spot that Susie saw Blue Morphos flying a few years ago

Cheers,

- Pete

[Padfield]

Thanks for the timeline, Pete - a fascinating read. I keep dropping in to UK Butterflies quickly and I seem to miss a lot of posts - I certainly missed this one. I will refer back to it often.

That 1911 cardinal, wasn't it E.B.Ford himself who identified it, after it had been passed over as paphia by one expert? I read Ford as a kid and that story stuck in my mind.

Guy