New Butterflies in Sweden

During 1998 we have inventoried nature and our collections of "wood whites" which have turned out to be two good species: Leptidea sinapis and reali. Both animals have been found both in nature and in our old collections from Gästrikland. See further Clas Källander's article on these species in this issue.

I myself think that this "new" species again raises the question of more or less good Swedish names for our butterflies. As far as I understand from Clas Källander's studies of these species during 1998 and my own experience, both our "old" wood white sinapis and the "new" wood white reali, which is the more common species, fly mainly in forest edges, along road verges and in sparse forest. L. sinapis apparently lives mainly on cock's comb while L. reali lives on bird's-foot trefoil. Suggestions for a Swedish name for the new butterfly include "meadow white."

I do not think this is a good suggestion. We have at least 6 species of the genus Leptidea, wood whites (Wood Whites in English). If the new species reali, which flies on more or less the same habitats as sinapis, is given the name "meadow white," the interpretation would have to be that the word "white" becomes the genus name for Leptidae. This would then be wrong since the name "white - whites" is already taken as the name for the entire family Pieridae. Clas has moreover hinted to me that the new "reali" is even more often found in forest edges and sparse forest than L. sinapis. This too speaks against the name meadow white being particularly good. I propose that we in Sweden, in keeping with our friends in England, honour P. Real, who more than 10 years ago made the astonishing discovery that this common butterfly was two species, by calling his butterfly "Real's wood white." Our old sinapis should then accordingly be called Linnaeus's wood white. See further below!

Is it not time for a comprehensive revision of the names of all Sweden's butterflies in connection with this? At the same time one could remove this business of "common, bastard, large and small etc.," that is, names that are vague, incorrect or diminutive. Why, for example, does the rare Hesperia comma have the name Common meadow skipper and the equally large Ochlodes venatus have the name Large meadow skipper? "Comma" should surely also in Swedish be called "Silverspotted meadow skipper." I realize of course that this will be an enormously large and perhaps demanding piece of work. With the debate on regional insects fresh in mind, one can only imagine how the waves of debate could roll. At the same time, this is stimulating and nothing one has any reason to shy away from.

I have myself worked for many years with Swedish names for at least our Holarctic butterflies. Problems quickly arise with how to handle the names of our common "typical butterflies" such as the Apollo butterfly, Aurora butterfly, Robber butterfly, Cabbage butterfly, Brimstone butterfly, Wood white, Map butterfly, Nettle butterfly, Admiral, Thistle butterfly, Meadow grass butterfly, Marbled white, Grayling, etc. Most of these are represented in Sweden by just one species. The Swedish name, however, refers most closely to the genus. We have several species of nettle butterflies, admirals, thistle butterflies, meadow grass butterflies, Apollo butterflies and so on. Can one in these cases call "our" species Linnaeus's nettle butterfly, Linnaeus's admiral etc. when the question arises of what our Swedish or European main species should be called? This of course presupposes that Linnaeus gave them their Latin names. This is almost always the case for these often common animals. For our 3 species of nettle butterfly one could then create the following names: Linnaeus's nettle butterfly, Kashmir nettle butterfly and American or Milbert's nettle butterfly. Since "our" nettle butterfly, A. urticae, flies in both North Africa and large parts of Asia, "European nettle" does not fit as a name. Asian nettle does not fit either for A. chashmiriensis since our urticae is also found in Asia.

Colias tyche?

I also want to throw down a gauntlet in this context and question some Latin names for our Nordic clouded yellows. I am thinking particularly of the "Pale clouded yellow" Colias nastes. During the many years I have collected clouded yellows from all over the world, I have found that my Colias nastes werdandi from Lapland do not look particularly like the nastes animals found in eastern Siberia, Alaska and Canada. When the first part of the grand Russian work on the former Soviet Union's butterflies was published a couple of years ago, it became fairly clear that there is at least one mystery here. I urge all those interested in something more than the animals that fly within our country's borders to obtain this wonderful book, part 1 of: GUIDE TO THE BUTTERFLIES OF RUSSIA AND ADJACENT TERRITORIES by among others V.K. Tuzov.

Our "nastes animals" should perhaps instead be called Colias tyche werdandi instead of Colias nastes werdandi. On the next page I show some pictures from my collection of Colias nastes and Colias tyche so that everyone can form their own opinion on where our Lappish animals belong. I might even venture to question whether our werdandi, which flies in a very small area in northernmost Lapland, at Kilpisjärvi in northern Finland and adjacent areas in Norway, should not actually be elevated to a more "distinct" animal. I do not want to go so far as to say that it is its own good species, but our werdandi does not at all resemble nastes animals from the easternmost Siberia and North America. They do not, however, quite resemble tyche animals either, which are somewhat more yellow on the undersides of the wings. The species Colias tyche also flies considerably further south and east, so there is room for a distinct species or subspecies in northernmost Europe.

I think our werdandi animals are very interesting. Hopefully this article can contribute to increased interest in this, one of our most remarkable animals. The animals east of the Kola peninsula towards the northern Urals resemble our werdandi and are now classified as tyche werdandi by the Russians in the above-mentioned book, while Vladimir Lukhtanov in his book from 1994 still placed this population within nastes.

I would also be very grateful for information on yellow and other "forms" of "tyche / nastes / werdandi / etc." The yellow form "christiernssoni," which Lampa described, is naturally close to my heart. My very good friend Yngve Christiernsson's uncle was a professional naturalist collector in the 19th century and found these yellow werdandi animals which Lampa called christiernssoni. In Collins's latest Field Guide "Butterflies of Britain and Europe," this yellow christiernssoni is presumed to be a hybrid between hecla and nastes. I do not believe this one bit. I believe it is a spontaneous yellow form that appears now and then in certain places, that is, a typical aberration. I am, as I said, very grateful for more information about yellow animals and other mysterious forms, of which I myself have several....

When we are on the subject of Nordic clouded yellows, questions have also arisen about whether our Colias hecla sulitelma is really a hecla or whether it should not simply be called Colias sulitelma, that is, be its own good species. Colias hecla is according to accepted practice circumpolar. The type specimens come from Greenland where the first specimens were described by Lefebvre in 1836. Unfortunately the specimens were thought to have been taken in Iceland, which is why the name hecla was chosen as the name for this beautiful butterfly. Colias hecla hecla is found around almost all of Greenland except along a small stretch on the southeastern coast facing Iceland. It is also absent from Iceland. Especially the female of these animals is quite different from the animals that fly in northern Canada and Alaska and particularly different from Siberian and northern Scandinavian animals.

What further complicates this is that between Greenland and Siberia there also fly some animals that have been described as "good species": Colias maedi, Colias viluiensis and Colias hyperborea. At present it is impossible to determine whether our hecla sulitelma is really the same species as the hecla hecla that Lefebvre described. It will be interesting to follow what results future DNA analyses can reveal. We who regard clouded yellows as the most pleasant and beautiful butterflies we have on our earth look with great anticipation and expectation to the work that Jan Haugum is currently carrying out on the world's clouded yellows. With Jan's and A.M. Low's excellent books on Troides and Ornithoptera in mind, one can reasonably expect a fine book work.

In the next issue of Insectifera I will probably show various "heclas" from Lapland to Greenland via Siberia and North America where all can themselves wonder about the difficulty of what constitutes good species or just subspecies, forms, aberrations, hybrids etc.

Göran Sjöberg