Association's Spring Meeting 29 May 1995

Insects in Fiction, 5

Tomas Di Leva on the Butterfly and Other Thoughts

Gävle's celebrated son and thinker, Tomas Di Leva, has held a number of lectures "on life". Tomas has also sung of life's mystery, employing the butterfly and the freedom associated with this wonderful creature in the song "Du vet" from his CD "Rymdblomma" from 1989.

Do not, however, content yourselves with Tomas's fine text alone. Buy the CD and listen to Tomas's tremendous engagement in the song!

Some thoughts from Tomas Di Leva in spring 1995:

"One should not take oneself too seriously"
"One is a doll in the Universe"

"I hope I can always be a child"

"Nature must enter the cities"

"Life is not a competition - it is a school"
"Music is not a sport"

"Money rules more than reason"

"When men begin to speak of god ..."

My interpretation of Di Leva is that men have resorted to an abstract God in order to achieve greater authority.

Du vet.

You know a song

As no one else can
But everything goes home
& you want to follow

Flying is difficult

When the mind weighs heavy
But everything will be fine
You'll find something one day

Even you can become a butterfly

Who flies
Even you can become a butterfly

Who hovers

The sun was burned

A crack grew strong
But truths remain
& no one can take them

Some can see

That we are not all

They will be proven right one day
& 2 shall become 3.

Even you can become a butterfly
Who flies
Even you can become a butterfly

Who hovers

Conclusion: In the blue

God is a man, created by man, while life is created in woman. Many men play God today when they are not satisfied with interest/growth, but take life/capital/the common forest as a right to freely dispose of, even though they themselves live such a short time that their lifetime barely registers in the forest's life if this man/god does not kill the forest during this time.

We humans are indeed a product of 4 billion trials of the diversity of life's spark. Surely it is strange that the rich today cannot afford to save even a fraction of the nature that has sustained us as a species for millions of years.

An exciting new book and thought by Erland Lagerroth:

The World and Knowledge Sing Anew.

Conclusion: Nature creates itself. Undeniably a most fascinating thought, considering all who throughout humanity's existence on earth have wanted to put forward the view that "someone", i.e. a god, created everything. Is "our" god "better" than Thor, Odin, Zeus, Apollo or a mascot at an exam. God probably only exists in our world of thought.

What would Wallace, Darwin and Linnaeus have thought of this?

Göran Sjöberg
95

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Results of the Competition in Insectifera 2:2

The question was: Which butterfly is this?

A number of answers to the competition we announced have been received by the society. Pleasingly, we have also received a completely correct answer from Jan Isidorsson in Uppsala. Jan also provided a description of the intelligent reasoning that led to the conclusion about which species it was.

First, Jan established that it must be an animal of the family Papilionidae since it has six legs. Some have no doubt wondered whether it could not be one of the many large tropical species of the family Nymphalidae. However, the clue "6 developed legs" suggests Papilionidae.

In his answer, Jan continues:

"Following the previous issue, the clue endemic and difficult, together with the appearance of the island Madagaskar, suggested itself as a probable range. The further specification "just north of the Tropic of Capricorn" I take literally, which rules out Madagaskar since it lies on the Tropic of Capricorn. That the species is threatened becomes the decisive tip. 'Swallowtail Butterflies: An action plan...' by New & Collins suggests it should be Comoro Isl., Réunion or Mauritius. On these islands there are threatened species.

It is hardly a question of some Graphium - so Comoro is ruled out. Remaining are P phorbanta (Réunion) and P manlius (Mauritius). Smart's 'Butterfly World' depicts a P manlius ♂, which does not match the clue 'the female is brown on the upper side'. In Feldwell 'The butterflies', he writes of P phorbanta ephiphorbas: 'The female is dull brown ... etc'

Regarding sex, Jan writes that 'The poorly developed spur on the hind wing suggests a female.'

Superbly done, Jan! Everything completely correct! 15 points.

Prize: A butterfly box with glass lid 35 x 50 cm.

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Editor's comment on the competition:

The requested species Papilio phorbanta thus flies on the small volcanic island Réunion in the Indian Ocean. During a journey to among others Madagaskar, Mauritius and the Seychelles in 1984, I also visited Réunion.

The isolated islands Mauritius and Réunion house, as one might expect, a rather species-poor but "endemic-rich" butterfly fauna. To the common man, the islands' most well-known, and perhaps only known animal, is the extinct Dodo. The Dodo is said to descend from pigeons that came to these islands from the African continent long, long ago. These pigeons subsequently developed into turkey-sized walking lumps of meat that came in handy when seafarers in the 1500s and 1600s took on supplies of food and water on the islands. Since the birds had lost the ability to fly, they became easy prey for the seafarers of that time.

The Dodo was exterminated in the middle of the 1600s. On Réunion and Rodriguez, the third volcanic island in the Mascarene group, several other wingless giant pigeons lived, among them some long-necked stately creatures, all of course extinct today. A total of at least 30 bird species have been exterminated since the first Portuguese seafarer arrived there in 1500.

Back to the butterflies.

The islands Réunion, Mauritius and Rodriguez house a day butterfly fauna of around 40 species. Well over 10 of these are either extinct or occasional visitors.

The most spectacular species on the islands consist of 2 species of the genus Papilio, swallowtail butterflies. Both species belong to the African "nireus group", which in Swedish can suitably be called the blue-banded swallowtails. The group comprises a total of 16 species, mainly black butterflies with a beautiful blue, shiny band across the upper sides of the wings. The blue colour varies from navy blue via turquoise to almost green.

The very homogeneous Nireus group shows great similarities with 2 species in central Africa, namely Papilio leucotaenia and Papilio mackinnoni. I have therefore chosen to also include these in the following compilation of the Nireus group's butterflies. Papilio leucotaenia is a fantastically large, beautiful, endangered and extremely well-camouflaged brown forest butterfly from the mountain regions where the mountain gorillas are found in southwestern Uganda to Rwanda and eastern Zaire. One can only hope that something remains of the forest that houses the mountain gorillas. This forest is namely extremely important for this forest creature as well. Particularly the females are very large and spectacular. The smaller species Papilio mackinnoni flies throughout central Africa.

The blue species show great similarities and are most represented in eastern Africa. The species that deviate most from the others are, not unexpectedly, the two species from the Mascarene island group: Papilio phorbanta on Réunion and Papilio manlius from Mauritius. On the giant island Madagaskar between Africa and Réunion there are 2 blue species of the "nireus group", namely: Papilio oribazus and Papilio epiphorbas.

The 3 species Papilio charopus from Cameroon, Papilio hornimanni from eastern Kenya and Tanzania, Papilio orobazus from Madagaskar and to some extent also Papilio epiphorbas from Madagaskar and the Comoro Islands form a natural transition to the animals that belong to the proper nireus group with Papilio aethiops, Papilio interjecta, Papilio desmondi, Papilio sosia, Papilio nireus and Papilio bromius, which are often further divided into a good species Papilio chrapkowskii. Papilio aristophontes on the Comoro Islands between southern Tanzania and northern Madagaskar forms a transition from the proper nireus group on the mainland or Papilio epiphorbas on Madagaskar.

In addition to these species, there are 3 others that in some way "fall outside the frame". These are partly the rare and unique Papilio thuraui from Malawi, and partly the 2 animals from Mauritius and Reunion. The latter two show pronounced signs of "inbreeding and degeneration" if one dares use such a loaded word in these times.

Papilio manlius from Mauritius shows greater similarity with the proper nireus group. It has, among other things, the white narrow band clearly marked on the underside of the wings (see image of Papilio nireus nireus). Papilio phorbanta, on the other hand, is clearly "more extreme", which is evident from the chocolate-brown female that constituted the competition question. A DNA analysis might perhaps reveal whose ancestors somehow made their way to the small volcanic islands 850 km east of Madagaskar out in the Indian Ocean.

The species can perhaps be divided according to the following, excerpted from my world list of the earth's day butterflies with specification of subspecies and distribution. My list is based on visible similarities, geographical conditions and my "feeling" for how I believe it to be. Studies in the literature provide no clues as almost all authors place the species differently according to their own opinions. Much remains to be done with DNA analysis of these animals to determine their relationships.

Genus: Papilio
Species Subspecies Geographic Distribution

Leucotaenia group
leucotaenia sw Uganda - Rwanda - E Zaire
mackinnoni mackinnoni ne Zaire - Uganda - s Sudan,
Kenya-Tanzania
benguellae c Angola: Highlands
theodori s Zaire: Shaba, n Zambia
reductofascia n Tanzania
mpwapwana Tanzania

Nireus group
charopus charopus Cameroon, Fernando Poo
juventus w Uganda, ne Zaire
montosus e Zaire, Rwanda, Burundi
hornimani Mountains: se Kenya - ne Tanzania
oribazus Madagaskar
epiphorbas Madagaskar, Comoro Islands
aristophontes Comoro Islands
manlius Mauritius
phorbanta phorbanta Reunion
(nana (extinct 1M+1F) Seychelles)
aethiops aethiops Ethiopia

&sp ? (darker)
n Somalia

interjecta occidua w Kenya, Uganda
desmondi Cc Zaire: Kasai province
teita se Kenya: Chyulu Hills
magdae se Kenya: Teita Hills
australis ne Tanzania: Mountains
desmondi (brontes) ne Tanzania - Malawi - e Zambia

sosia pulchra debillis sosia Sierra Leone - Cameroon
Gabon - CAR - Zaire
Uganda
Senegal - w Uganda - Zaire

nireus lyaeus pseudonireus wilsoni nireus Uganda - Kenya - Tanz. - South Africa
Ethiopia - n Uganda - n Kenya
& Sudan: forest areas
Sierra Leone - w Uganda - Angola

bromius bromius w Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi
chrapkowskoides Nyika plateau: Malawi, Zambia
cyclopis São Tomé
furvus w Tanzania, E Zaire
interjacens ev Tanz: Ufiparegion
ufipa Kenya: highlands, E + c Uganda
chrapkowskii n Malawi, s Tanzania

thuraui

How then is the situation for the two papilionids on Réunion and Mauritius? Both species are listed on IUCN's "world threat list" of papilionids, i.e. swallowtails. (IUCN = International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources). In total we have about 3100 species, i.e. ca. 20% of the world papilionid fauna on this list.

The in many respects excellent list unfortunately also contains many animals that do not belong on such a list, while many other animals are missing from the list. For those of us who like systematics, one can also wonder who compiled this list, as it is quite confused regarding the arrangement of species. This is, however, a minor matter. It is really gratifying that such a list has been compiled. One only wonders what applies to all the other 19,000 species of day butterflies, not to mention the "night creatures".

Throughout, it can be stated that the threat picture looks most bleak for species that live in the lowlands on small islands or along small coastal localities on larger islands or continents. It is precisely in such localities that the two swallowtail species on this list were found, but most likely are unfortunately already extinct today. (Burytides iphitas at Rio de Janeiro and Graphium levassori on Grand Comoro, see Insectifera 1:2 1993)

Both Papilio manlius on Mauritius and Papilio phorbanta on Réunion are listed on the threat list. During my brief visits to the islands in 1984, I saw no specimens of the species. According to received reports and literature, however, the species are still present and are not as threatened as some claim. What may possibly benefit the species is that they now reproduce on citrus plantations. This can, however, also be a threat, as these plantations are often subjected to spraying and other drastic measures by humans. Precisely sudden "initiatives" from us humans, whether it be spring cleaning, "environmental conservation measures", to clear-cutting etc. are often devastating for a sensitive small local population.