DNA studies?; New DNA studies; More about Port Famine

DNA studies?

In 1997 I was wondering whether one could do DNA analysis of Colias ponteni. I then wrote in our magazine "Insectifera":

"If one could do a DNA analysis of the butterflies, this would of course also be extremely interesting. Hopefully, such an analysis might clarify how close the relative "imperialis specimens" are to the "ponteni specimens". Maybe it would even be able to get an idea of how large the population of the species could be, but above all it would be extremely interesting to see if it was possible to form a family tree with the other Colias species in the world. Then one might perhaps get an idea of where this isolated population in Hawaii originated."

A few years after the article was written, I received a letter from Professor Omoto in Japan who was doing just that kind of study. I sent him a small fragment of a leg of Wallengren's specimen of Colias ponteni.

Unfortunately, however, it proved impossible to obtain any useful material from this 150-year-old ponteni leg. Since this analysis took place more than 20 years ago and the technology has developed a lot since then, it would of course be very interesting to try again with this method, not least in order to find out more about Colias ponteni’s relationship with the other American Colias species.

New DNA-studies

Hopefully the time has finally come when it is planned that during this year, 2019, this kind of DNA study will be carried out because the technology has developed considerably over the past twenty years. Now, as this is written, I can only hope that we can get answers to the questions where Colias ponteni was actually found and where it ends up in a Colias family tree! Perhaps the pupa I found at the Evolutionary Museum in Uppsala might also give the crucial answer to the question of Port Famine or Honolulu?

Quite soon after I found the pupa, I consulted retired researcher Roland Moberg at the Botanical Department in Uppsala to see if it would be possible to do a DNA analysis of the stalk on which the pupa was attached. It could be a decisive proof if one could determine which species the stalk belonged to. He then replied that it was unfortunately impossible to get any useful information out of that 150 years old dry plant stalk.

More about Port Famine

Can the areas around Port Famine be the place for the collection of Colias ponteni and how did it look from the beach when the frigate Eugenie arrived in 1852 and also later? An interesting insight into this can be found in a note in the Swedish research traveler Carl Skottberg's book "Båtfärder" (Boat Voyages) which deals with his expedition for example to Tierra del Fuego. He describes the conditions around the Punta Arena, which is only about 30 miles north of Port Famine along the Strait of Magellan, around 50 years after the frigate Eugenie arrived at Port Famine.

Skottberg writes:

“In front of us lies a low yellow sandy beach, from which here and there narrow bridges go out into the strait, and beyond the beach the country rises to forested hills and ridges, where the fire burned black fields in the rich greenery. And between the sea and the forest lies Punta Arenas, the town at the Strait of Magelháes' type for the settler city and the upstart community, with an astoundingly rapid development behind it. In ten years, it has multiplied its population, and 12,000 people now have their home there - Chileans and Spaniards, Germans and Englishmen, French and Italian, Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, Russians Austrians. . . a language blunder, against which Babels almost fades. Stone palace among the metal houses, myriads of hotels and taverns, large storefronts and dirty windows, howling gramophones, slurries of "cocktails", which are brewed - see the first impression. We settle down on the traditional Swedish-traveling place, the hotel cosmos, whose low, white building rests on the sandy beach.”

Based on this description, it seems quite unlikely to me that nobody from any country for almost 170 years would have succeeded in finding this extremely eye-catching orange Colias butterfly. Which in that case of Kinberg and Andersson, who were not even entomologists, on a single day when they were probably completely concentrating on birds and plants, would have collected at least five specimens. Based on this, there is hardly any reason to suggest that the area south of Port Famine down towards Mt Tarn would be the place where Colias ponteni was collected. I have already mentioned the same thing about Mt Tarn based on Charles Darwin's description of the mountain in his book about the voyage on the Beagle.

Dr. Gerardo Lamas, who by many is considered to possess the greatest knowledge of South America's butterflies, wrote in 1981: “Obviously, no one has seen Colias ponteni alive for over 137 years. Hardly anyone, however, has visited the supposed localities and looked for it”. I have no idea how big the research was that actually happened in the area. However, based on Lama's suggestion, I read Skogman's book about which other landings were made on Eugenie's voyage through the Strait of Magellan. At that time, the beach-landing at the mouth of the Bachelor River appeared as the only possible alternative to Port Famine and Mt Tarn.